


Affliction

by tolakasa



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Season/Series 05
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-07
Updated: 2014-11-08
Packaged: 2018-02-24 12:48:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 45,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2581991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tolakasa/pseuds/tolakasa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU of season 5, veering off from canon after the end of 5.04, after Sam and Dean are hunting together again. In a diner one day, Sam notices that something's missing. Something kind of important.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Anosmia

**Author's Note:**

> Art by mashimero: [Masterpost](http://mashimero.livejournal.com/227602.html)
> 
> Beta: firesign10
> 
> Written for the 2014 Sam and Dean Mini-Bang at samdean_otp, although clearly my Muse does not comprehend the concept of "mini."
> 
> Some of the medical stuff may not be precisely accurate, in which case I plead ignorance, inadequate research materials in this area, and/or artistic license. And yes, I am completely ignoring everything Show ever said about paganism and/or pagan deities, because it's always annoyed the fuck out of me and that's a perk of Being The Writer. I'd say that I tried to be more respectful than they are, but that's not saying a whole lot. (But I did!)

He's not sure exactly when it starts. He doesn't notice anything until one day in the car when Dean wrinkles his nose and grumbles, "Oughta be a law about leaving dead skunks on the highway."

Sam frowns. Dean is reacting to _something_ , that's clear enough--Dean's _ew that's gross_ expression really can't be mistaken for much else. But Sam doesn't smell anything, _eau de polecat_ or otherwise, and for Dean to be reacting to it at all, given their line of work, that has to be one powerful deceased skunk.

He files it away for contemplation later, when he has the time. They do have an apocalypse to stop, after all. Maybe it's like one of those mystery noises the Impala periodically makes, the ones Dean swears a deaf man could hear and that Sam privately (very privately) thinks are just proof that his brother's relationship with the car is completely and totally unnatural.

Some miles later, they pull into a diner for lunch--fancy, by their standards; a place with an "A" on the inspection placard, floor tiles that are beige because they're supposed to be, not just patinaed with grease and dirt, and actual security cameras rather than obviously plastic fakes--but the prices advertised in the plate-glass windows are dirt-cheap even for a small-town diner, which is an important consideration since they're scraping the bottom of the Winchester bank.

It's when Dean does that overly-appreciative inhale that he does when presented with a delectable food aroma that Sam realizes that he really doesn't smell anything. There's no scent in the air at all--not the chili that is apparently the Wednesday special, not the asphalt of the parking lot baking in the sun, not even the standard reek of old grease and questionable customers that fills any diner like this. He might as well be standing in a hermetically-sealed room.

Maybe the skunk hadn't been the olfactory equivalent of the Impala's mystery noises, after all.

There had been that case of sniffles back in Ohio.... The pollen counts had been through the roof, and the stress of knowing Lucifer's out there wanting to take over your body probably isn't good for the immune system, so--figuring it was allergies or an oncoming sinus infection--he'd tossed down vitamin C and knockoff Sudafed until he could breathe without sneezing and gone on with his miserable life. But that had been three weeks, seven states, and five cases ago.

And besides, if the problem _had_ been an overdose of allergens, why is he standing here listening to Dean rhapsodize about the way Wednesday's Never-Ending Kettle of Chili smells, completely unable to tell if it actually smells that good or if his brother's pranking him?

After a few minutes, he's pretty sure it's not a prank. Dean doesn't drool for pranks.

He slides into the booth opposite his brother as Dean flirts with their waitress (Hattie, according to her name tag), going so far as to compliment the odd-looking charm she wears on a heavy silver necklace (it's either a horned cow's head or the worst rendition of the Minnesota Vikings logo ever). Sam looks out the window, ignoring their banter in favor of trying to remember what the last thing he actually smelled was, and before he realizes it, Dean's ordered for both of them. (Chili.) Is he even going to be able to _taste_ it? Smell plays an important role in taste, he knows that much, and if he really _can't_ smell, he should have noticed it long before now.

But food has tasted off to him since his first taste of demon blood, to be honest. Even more so since Lucifer was freed, as if just knowing that the Devil wants him for a vessel is screwing up his senses.

He sternly corrects himself on the passive voice: _Since I freed Lucifer._ Denying responsibility just compounds his sins.

The chili arrives, and he tests a spoonful. It's not entirely tasteless, but it doesn't taste like _chili_ to him. It's more like a blast of saltiness across his tongue, with a little bit of sour and sweet and bitter--the basic things that taste buds pick up. No spice or subtlety at all.

Demon blood only dulled the taste of real food. It never did this.

"Sam? You gonna eat that or meditate on it?"

"Huh?" He looks across the table at Dean, who's already inhaled half his bowl and is looking at Sam's with the same expression of lust that he was aiming at Hattie's ass ten minutes ago. "Nah. You can have it."

"You okay?"

Sam shrugs, pushes his bowl over to Dean, and flags Hattie down. "Not in the mood for that much spice, that's all." Something bland, something that's not _supposed_ to have flavor, so that his brain isn't demanding to know where the food is because what he sees doesn't match up to what he tastes. He convinces Hattie to tack his bowl of chili onto Dean's order, so they're not paying for an extra special, and winds up with meatloaf and mashed potatoes. When Dean's not looking, he buries them in enough salt to settle the spirits of a whole herd of dead cows. The taste of salt helps convince his brain that he actually is eating, at least until his stomach is full. He can't afford not to eat, neither one of them can; they both have to keep their strength up, even on the days between jobs. With their luck, the day they skip a chance for a meal is the day they'll wind up fighting Heaven _and_ Hell, and somehow Sam doesn't think Lucifer _or_ Michael will let them stop for a snack.

At least he knows what he'll be doing tonight: research. _Something_ caused this, and he needs to fix it, quick, before Dean figures out that something's wrong. That's just what he needs, Dean having to nurse him through some wacky nasal issue during pending Apocalypse. Dean's temper is short enough these days, between the booze and the frustration and the anger. Something happened while they were separated, something that Dean won't talk about--and whatever it was, it makes him even more pissed off at Sam than he was about the whole trusting-Ruby-more and setting-Lucifer-free mess in the first place. Sam's thought about asking a thousand times, but he hasn't yet managed to scrape up the nerve. Especially after the way Dean exploded when Sam mentioned the possibility of checking out a rare-book shop in Detroit.

Honestly, he's not sure he wants to know. Finding out that Lucifer wants to wear him was bad enough.

Dean demolishes four bowls from the Never-Ending Kettle of Chili plus Sam's, possibly ending that promotion for good, _and_ gets Hattie's number and a free slice of blueberry pie in the time it takes Sam to choke down his own plate of salt-crusted food. As they get in the car, Sam reflects that maybe it's a good thing his sense of smell picked today to go dead, because otherwise, an afternoon in a closed space with his brother after that much chili could be downright _miserable_.

 

***

 

If the chili wasn't enough of a sign, the motel that night is; there's no mustiness in the air, even though Sam can _see_ the mildew in the bathroom and the mold in the corners and the water damage to the ceiling, and Dean makes a noise-movement-something at the door that might be a half-suppressed full-body flinch. "Don't look too close at the carpet, Sammy," he says, tossing his duffel onto a bed and digging out the salt. Sam looks anyway, and regrets it.

"Haven't had a chance for new plastic in awhile," Dean says while he's drawing the lines. "Got cards waiting in a box in Omaha if we can get there." It's an apology, like the sorry state of the room is somehow his fault.

Sam gives his own bag a toss, and sees the ashtray on the nightstand. It's been ages since they were so hard up they stayed in a smoking room. Dean doesn't like the stink of old tobacco any more than he does; it adheres to your clothes like cat hair and warns every supernatural creature with a working sense of smell that you're trying to sneak up on it. Normally, they would have gone on and found a place that had a non-smoking room available, but their strained finances aren't going to let them be picky tonight. They have to eat and the Impala needs refueling.

Maybe this explains why Sam hasn't noticed anything before. Shitty motel rooms, rotting corpses, burning flesh, boiling blood, a thousand different kinds of noxious goo.... In their line of work, being unable to smell is a blessing, not a curse, and if allergies make you go congested without turning into a full-on sinus infection or sneezing fits, spring's your favorite season. Nobody ever gets fully inured to the stinks they deal with. Just a couple of weeks ago, Dean--a man who's been to _Hell_ \--hurled from the stench of a monster. And that's not even counting the normal smells of sharing close quarters with another human being.

But he's not sick, not obviously. Not even the sniffles. So this has to be a sign of something else, and that's what worries him. For all the demonic and angelic crap in their lives, they're still human, and humans are fragile creatures. Humans get things like--say--brain tumors. That might even be why Lucifer's so convinced that he'll say yes, because it's not like he and Dean have any access to chemo or radiation or brain surgery. If there's something growing in his head, angelic interference might be the _only_ way to heal it, and with Cas's powers waning....

Sam settles at the table with his laptop while Dean's in the shower and pulls up Wiki. The page on the sense of smell-- _olfaction_ \--is highly technical and less than helpful, except for telling him that the lack of a sense of smell is _anosmia_. Unfortunately, in the medical world, just having the name of something doesn't always help. Demons, now, demons you can exorcise with that info.

The list of things that can cause it is three screens long and incomplete, and that's just the _physical_ causes, because scientific pages on Wiki generally do not include supernatural causes of mundane illnesses. Not unless the teenagers have been making edits again.

He digs out his notes from the last few weeks. Most of his recent research has been Biblical, notes on the thousand and one versions of Revelation and the assorted folklore surrounding Lucifer, Michael, and Armageddon, but they've been taking the odd regular case, too, if there's such a thing as regular in their lives anymore. Werewolf, chupacabra, something that was supposed to be a coven of witches but turned out to be some bullied teens with too much mascara and no limits on their Internet access. Nothing powerful or vengeful enough to have done this. There's the angels, but only Zachariah has shown any evidence of subtlety or imagination. (Sam still owes him for that tech support gig, real or not.) Lucifer's probably better at the subtle, but he's also totally convinced that long, heartfelt dream-conversations and attempts at puppy eyes are going to be enough to pull Sam over to the dark side, so why would he _bother_ with something like this?

And either way, wouldn't that require that the angels be able to _find_ them? The sigils carved into their ribs seem to be working. They still have to use a cell phone to contact Cas, anyway, and the only times they've had to deal with other angels, they've pretty much walked smack into them.

Sam stifles a sigh, pulls a beer out of the cooler, and goes back to the laptop. (The beer has no taste whatsoever, but the stuff in the pipes came out rust-brown at first.) He'll just have to go through all these possible causes and see if something fits. Probably none of them will, but at least it's a bit of variety from being up to his ears in angels and demons.

Seriously, though, the last time something major turned out to be an actual non-demonic, non-hunting _health_ problem was.... The measles when he was six? Maybe? And he wouldn't have had that if Dad hadn't been so focused on hunting that he forgot their vaccinations.

He's too young for Parkinson's and most of the dementias. Multiple sclerosis? Still on the young side, but not impossible.

Head trauma. Now there's a possibility, though it's been a good long while since he got anything even approaching a concussion. He doesn't remember taking a hit to the head recently, but then, he's not sure when this started, either. Smell's one of those things that you take for granted. He can't be expected to remember when he stopped noticing--

Wait. He _definitely_ remembers the bar--the sharp tang of the endless limes and lemons he'd cut, the bleach-and-soap steam from the dishwasher, the rich black aroma of the demon blood when Tim and Reggie tried to force him to drink it. Even if God (or whoever) _did_ smack him into instant sobriety, the addiction's still there. The iron-copper-sulfur smell of it is so clear in his memory that he can almost smell it _now_ , just like he remembers how he immediately wanted nothing else, remembers the way part of him didn't even _care_ if there was a knife to Lindsey's throat so long as he could taste that blood, that _power_ again--

"Everything okay, Sam?"

He jumps half out of his skin. Instinct and habit send his fingers flying across the keys to swap to a browser tab on translating Aramaic before Dean can get a good look at the screen. He's not sure if Dean intentionally startled him or if he was really just that lost in his own thoughts. "Fine. Just trying to translate some of this stuff Bobby sent me."

Dean looks at him, that look that's never quite skeptical but is also completely unconvinced by Sam's statement, that look that greets everything Sam says these days, until he finally shrugs. "Don't stay up too late," he says, and goes to bed, the one next to the window, closest to the door. Even now, that's always the one he takes, putting himself between Sam and any threats.

Sam pretends to go back to reading his screen, but he waits for it, watching. There's no neon outside this motel, just a plain lit sign and streetlights, and the curtains are thick enough to block it out--

Dean's hand sneaks out from under the bedspread and tugs back the drapes, just a bit, just enough to let a thread of light from outside fall onto his bed, and then he rolls up in the covers and plants his head on the pillow, just like nothing happened.

Sam figured out the nightmares pretty quick--takes one to know one. The hypervigilance took a little longer, but still, a guy goes to Hell and comes back, you expect there to be side effects. This, though, this didn't show up until after the angels' idiot plan to torture Alastair failed so very spectacularly, after Dean found out about the first seal. It took awhile to notice, because Sam had other things on his mind and Dean's always been good at covering his tracks if it's something he thinks will make Sam worry, and even then, the first few times, Sam was convinced he was seeing things.

Because Dean may be the first one to tell people they've got every reason to be scared of the dark, but Dean's also always been half a creature of the night himself, the one who was more alive after sunset and not just because that was when all the bars were open. Darkness, in and of itself, never scared him. Sam remembers more than one stormy afternoon squandered in the pursuit of seeing just how dark they could make the inside of a blanket-fort. _He_ was always the one afraid to sleep when the power went out at night, the one who required funny stories and flashlights and constant contact with Dean.

Now Dean's as quick on the draw with flashlights as he is with guns, and to sleep, he needs--

Okay, so Sam's not brave enough to call it a "nightlight," even in the privacy of his own head. Dean would beat the ever-loving _crap_ out of him.

It never happens in rooms where there's some light inside, where the curtains are worn so thin or full of holes that half the light from the parking lot shines through anyway. It's only when they're in places that can actually be made darkest-dark. Dean finds excuses to go to bed before Sam, and if there's no way Sam will believe the excuse that Dean's just that tired, he'll turn to his trusty pal alcohol, just to make sure he passes out before Sam turns out the lights.

Dean will only risk the blackness if the light outside is red. If they land in a motel that supplies alarm clocks, if its numbers glow red, Sam knows if he leaves Dean alone, just for a couple of minutes, he'll come back to find the clock shoved into a drawer with the Gideon Bible and Dean already trying to paralyze his terror with a bottle. Green or blue displays, Dean ignores.

Ember-red, blood-red in the darkness, and Dean doesn't just have nightmares, he comes out of bed with a weapon in hand, trying to defend himself from memories. So far, he hasn't done more than put a hole or two in a wall. So far, he hasn't mistaken Sam for a demon, though that's largely because Sam's a light sleeper these days and when _that_ kind of noise wakes him, he freezes, afraid that movement will get Dean's attention.

It's clearly Hell-related--some kind of PTSD, like they both don't have enough of that already--and this is so not what they need. That's why Sam hasn't mentioned it, why he hasn't started shoving the clocks into drawers on his own, because if he does, Dean will go into full-on denial and try to prove it's _not_ happening, try to prove he can sleep in the dark, and probably wind up so sleep-deprived that he _does_ kill somebody. Sam just silently does what he can--stays up later doing research, mostly, because Dean never complains about the room being too bright anymore. When he can get away with it, Sam "accidentally" leaves the bathroom light on, or one of the lights over a sink. Once, he even "forgot" to give a microwave door the final push to make sure it latched. Anything to get a bit of light shining through the black.

Because Dean needs to be able to get some rest, and he needs to be able to get it _without_ relying on alcohol. Drinking himself to sleep every night is a _bad plan_ , not just because it's the first step to liver failure, but because there's only two people in the universe who stand a chance of getting them out of this mess, God and Dean. Since God doesn't seem to care, their chances are better if Dean's at least mostly sober.

Sam has no illusions. Not any more. If he actually proves to be useful, it'll be as part of somebody else's plan. Every time Sam tries to fix this disaster, he just gets them pulled in deeper. It's been that way ever since he promised to save Dean from Hell. Nobody else will admit it, not to his face, but the truth is, they're all just waiting for Sam to fuck up again, to give in to Lucifer and say yes and kick-start the final phase of Armageddon.

And what's he doing? Staring at a screen trying to figure out where his sense of smell's gone.

Had it started with Lucifer? That first night when Lucifer came to him in a dream and told him _why_ he'd been targeted by Azazel? It doesn't seem right, but it had to be soon after that. When he and Dean decided they'd be better off fighting it together? He closes his eyes and tries to summon the memory.

No. He had _definitely_ been able to smell then. That car he'd stolen had reeked of smoke, and not just tobacco. Since then.

So much else has been grabbing his attention that he's never going to figure out when exactly it happened, not more specifically.

He should tell Dean in the morning. Maybe it's nothing, maybe for once it actually _is_ a purely physical ailment, but it's still a potential weakness, and Dean had made it clear: No more lies.

But--it's _smelling_ things, for crying out loud, not like he's actually sick or suffering a demon-blood relapse. A lot of the things they hunt rely on smell, but their own training focused more on sight and sound, because a human's sense of smell is relatively weak compared to everything else out there. Even Dad never expected them to track a ghost or skinwalker by smell alone.

And if he does tell Dean about this, what's to stop him from assuming that this is just some other scheme of Lucifer's? That it just means Lucifer's already gotten his hooks into Sam and Sam really _can't_ be trusted? Dean could make them split up again, or pack Sam off to Bobby's--or Bobby's panic room. Sam's been locked in there more than enough for one lifetime, thanks.

No, supernatural or not, he's better off trying to figure this out himself.

Sam glances up at his brother, at the just-barely-opened curtains.

One of them should get some sleep.  



	2. Ageusia

After a few days, it's plain that his sense of smell isn't coming back, so Sam resigns himself to getting used to it, at least until things calm down enough that he can take the time to find a doctor. He figures out what foods to order to get the most taste via his taste buds and smothers the less-tasty stuff in salt or sugar as appropriate. He's not eating quite as healthy as he normally tries to, but reactions to salty and sweet are easier to fake than to bitter, sour, or umami. He only risks them if the food is _supposed_ to be sour or bitter. Coffee, at least, isn't a problem. Dean would notice _real_ quick if Sam quit chugging caffeine.

Dean hasn't said anything about Sam's sudden affection for the salt shaker, so he hasn't noticed. Or so Sam hopes.

Besides, there _are_ distractions. Angels, demons, end of the world, Bobby in a depressive rut....

Not to mention, you'd think an impending apocalypse would drive the normal supernatural things--wait, is that an oxymoron?--underground. But no. It's not just demons and angels taking sides on this. All the monsters are, too, every last one trying to kiss up to the side they want to win.

Not that it makes much difference to _their_ lives. Be they pro-Heaven or pro-Hell, the monsters _all_ remain anti-Winchester.

That's the only explanation Sam can come up with for why a nest of vamps is time-sharing with a mated pair of werewolves in the middle of Vermont, anyway. It's not because vamps want blood and werewolves want hearts, so teaming up minimizes the body count and helps them stay undetected. They're _guarding_ an old monastery's collection of rare volumes on the end times, one of which Bobby thinks may have some insight into getting Lucifer back into the Cage.

Naturally.

It takes the better part of a week to get the book extricated, and they're both so fatigued by the end that it's all Dean can do to find a motel without driving the Impala straight into a tree. He doesn't even take the time to _eat_ before he collapses into bed. Sam's not far behind--he takes five minutes to call Bobby and to secure the damn book before _he_ gets up close and personal with a pillow.

He's jerked out of tangled nightmares of Lucifer and fire and Jess when Dean smacks him on the feet as a wake-up call. It's something Sam particularly hates, even more than the AC/DC in his ear or ice down his neck. He's _always_ hated it, and Dean knows it. "Dean!" he shouts, but Dean only stares him down. 

Oh. One of _those_ mornings. 

Then he remembers. The only light outside had been red--not neon, just a sign with all the white panels burned out--and since those curtains probably date back to the Kennedy administration, they did nothing for keeping it out. Sam had been too exhausted to remember to "accidentally" leave a light on, so exhausted that for once he actually slept through Dean's nightmare awakenings. Which definitely happened, because there are two holes in the wall opposite Dean's bed that were not there when Sam conked out. There will be no brotherly teasing today, just Dean pissed at the world and everything in it and taking it out on the nearest convenient target.

That being Sam, of course.

"And get a move on," Dean growls, "I'm starving."

_Because you didn't eat last night,_ Sam thinks, but doesn't say it. First, it'll only make Dean angrier, since Dean really does hate missing meals, even if it's because he's too tired to eat, and second-- Well, when it comes down to it, why _shouldn't_ he be the target of his brother's anger? They wouldn't be _in_ this mess at all if Sam hadn't set Lucifer free. Or if he'd saved Dean from Hell the way he'd promised, the way Dean always saved him. Or if he'd just killed Jake the way he should have. 

It really isn't any wonder that Dean's a functional alcoholic. The only reason they're even in this together is because being in it apart has failed miserably. What was it Dean said? They keep each other human. For values of "human" that equal "totally miserable," anyway.

No, he shouldn't think that way. It's not Dean's fault. It's his. If he'd listened to Dean about Ruby in the first place, maybe they would have been able to avoid this entire mess. Maybe he would have even found the way to keep Dean out of Hell--then the first seal would never have been broken, and the last year or so would have never happened. The demons and angels can theorize all they want, and he'd never say this to Dean's face, but there is _no way_ their father qualified as a righteous man. A _good_ man, maybe, but from everything Sam's research says, that's not the same thing.

Sam goes through his morning routine automatically, still a little fuzzy-brained. He doesn't know how older hunters handle this, doesn't know how _Dad_ handled it, the constant exhaustion and sleep deprivation and all the rest; he doesn't even qualify as _late twenties_ yet and his body is already screaming _I'm too old for this shit_. When he gets to his teeth, he starts brushing, then stops abruptly, swearing under his breath. So distracted by guilt and fatigue and the promise of a shitty day that he didn't even remember the damn toothpaste. Who needs Lucifer when he's busy losing his mind just fine on his own?

He reaches for the tube and tries to twist it open one-handed--

Only to glance at his toothbrush and see froth and a smear of green gel.

He stares. No. No way. Dean bought half a case of this shit on clearance from a dollar store; it's powerful, industrial strength, if that can be said of toothpaste. It was cheap because nobody in their right mind wanted it. This stuff doesn't have a minty tingle, it fucking _burns_ , and Sam's never been completely convinced it's not actually _damaging_ their teeth--

And he didn't taste it. Not even the dulled, can't-smell-it taste he's been dealing with these last few weeks.

"Hey, Dean?" He holds out the toothpaste. "Does this taste all right to you?"

Dean just stares at him, the cranky morning glare intensifying. "You want me to taste the fucking _toothpaste?_ "

"Humor me?"

"Jesus Christ, Sam, get a move on!"

Stung, Sam retreats and brushes his teeth. There doesn't seem to be anything wrong with his tongue or teeth. He just can't taste the toothpaste. Maybe it's just mint--or whatever God-awful thing this stuff is supposed to taste like. Maybe his tongue just got tired of being damaged by it and gave up.

The nearest source of breakfast is a diner attached to their hotel, which is good, because it's pouring rain hard enough to scare Noah and anything more would probably require a swim. Their waitress is either not a morning person or--given the bright gold sunburst pin she wears below a nametag printed "Ami"--she _really_ hates rain. She slams down two glasses of sunshine-yellow orange juice before either Sam or Dean can even ask for one, and he can practically see the words "thank you" bounce off her. It's just as well that Dean's not in a mood to flirt, because Sam doesn't think Ami would respond to it, and that would just make Dean more cranky.

Of course, he hadn't _planned_ on asking for orange juice in the first place, but Ami brings coffee when he orders it, so he doesn't think anything much of it. Maybe she just got her tables confused. And it's a chance to test, to see if it is just the damned toothpaste or a bigger problem.

No such luck. The juice might as well be water. 

Likewise, his breakfast might as well be Styrofoam and cardboard with a side of leather. He suspects that maybe Ami did something, but despite her less-than-sunny demeanor, she brings out exactly what they ordered, and Dean doesn't have any problems clearing his plate, doesn't say one thing about the food.

At least the caffeine still has an effect, clearing out the last of the morning sleepies. And he's not hungry--he actually feels a little full--so even if he can't _taste_ it, his body is otherwise handling the food properly.

Sam's starting to think he might need to hold on to those little positives.

***

Their motel that night has the sink and mirror in the bathroom rather than out in the room itself. That's good, because Dean's mood improved once they spent some time on the road with the AC/DC blasting, and if he sees any of this, Sam will never hear the end of it. Pissed Dean may be, but he's still a big brother.

Sam uses his fingers to feel his throat and neck and behind his ears, looking for anything abnormal, lumps or swellings or spots of tenderness. Nothing. He leans closer to the mirror and sticks his tongue out. Right, left, up, down. He pulls his lips back with his fingers to get a better look at his gums, the bottom of his tongue, the insides of his cheeks. The undignified performance is totally not worth it, because he can't see anything for his own fingers, and he's reduced to using his fingers to feel around the floor of his mouth for anything that might be unusual, a growth or a wayward tooth or a cut or _something_. 

He finally gives up, spits into the sink, and washes his hands--then, on a whim, leans closer and tries to see up his nose.

Yeah. Not his best idea, as he realizes when he slams nose-first into his own reflection. Idiots in the mirror may be closer than they appear.

"Everything okay in there?" Dean calls from the room, replying to the sudden stream of profanity.

"Fide!" Sam answers, holding his nose. It doesn't look broken and doesn't seem to be bleeding--not that he'd be able to smell or taste the blood anyway. 

So. Nothing obviously wrong. His tongue still works fine. He can chew and swallow and talk without difficulty.

What. The. Hell?

***

The research word of the evening, which he tucks between tabs on archangels and the Four Horsemen while watching Dean pacing and drinking and swearing at Cas over the phone, is _ageusia_ , and pure ageusia is almost unheard-of. Usually it's _dys_ geusia, things tasting funny. It does occur fairly often with anosmia, but that does absolutely nothing to explain Sam's situation. He has no way to determine if the anosmia actually caused the ageusia, if they're both caused by a third problem, or if they're totally unrelated, and with his life, any one of those is just as possible as the others. Even if he could risk a trip to an ER or a clinic, he'd just wind up referred to a specialist, and they don't have the money or time for that.

Plus, he'd have to explain this to Dean, and _that_ is a conversation he's just not ready to have. Not yet. Not until he's sure this is something that _needs_ attention. He's made it these past weeks without smelling anything, so how much harder can this be? This will probably be better for his blood pressure, anyway, considering how much salt he's been putting on his food.

He's just got to keep Dean from noticing. Dean's temper is getting better, but mention Lucifer or angels or Ilchester or, God help you, Detroit, and you can almost _see_ the black cloud form over his head. 

Sam _still_ doesn't get the Detroit thing. They've never had a particularly memorable case there. They attended school there for two weeks when Sam was eleven, but it was so un-memorable that _he_ can barely remember it, so he doesn't understand why Dean would _explode_ over it. Maybe the next time Cas flits in, he can corner the angel and see if _he_ knows. Whatever happened, it happened while he and Dean were separated, and he knows at one point Dean and Cas went chasing down Raphael. He thought they were in New England, but he could have misunderstood.

Of course, that's assuming Cas ever answers the phone, and given the increasingly creative ways Dean is stringing together four-letter words and spitting them into the angel's voice mail, that may not be happening anytime soon.

***

Sam's life has been so miserable for so long that he forgot that there _are_ little pleasures, little things that make the misery bearable. The good days, when he and Dean can _almost_ be the way they used to be, just brothers with an unusual vocation, are high on the list. The simple joy of getting a clean motel room with decent hot water, sheets without holes, and no mold in the corners. Food has always been hit-and-miss, mostly miss, but the sheer number of restaurants they hit means there's a fair number of decent ones.

But when everything tastes the same, tastes like _nothing_....

There are so few pleasures in his life these days that it hurts more than he expects to lose this one.

He has to eat. He knows that. He has to keep his strength up to resist Lucifer, to help Dean, to prevent the apocalyptic showdown that's otherwise in their future. It's just so damned _hard_. 

Somewhere along the way, in the haze of demon blood, he lost all control over his appetite, all sense of hunger. Demon blood dulled things so badly that he's become wholly reliant on external cues. Ruby's visits always involved food. At the time, he thought she just had an unhealthy fixation on French fries. Now he realizes she was bringing the food intentionally, so that the smell would remind him to eat, so that he wouldn't accidentally starve himself. _Now_ he understands why so many of their meetings were in diners. 

Without being able to smell the food, he doesn't have that cue. 

What he _does_ have is an older brother who might be pissed off at the world in general and Sam in particular, but Dean never let Sam go hungry when they were kids, no matter what it took, and some things are apparently beyond the power of Hell to change. Dean's always been just this side of a walking appetite, anyway, so it's a little easier to remember: Just eat when Dean does. Even if it's only a snack.

And that's where the lack of taste comes in. Before, once he started eating, the taste of food would kick his hunger into gear, reinvigorating whatever mortal instincts the demon blood dulled. He doesn't even have that any more. The only thing he can really sense about the food is the texture, and no one, not even Dean, ever went on and on about how great food feels between his teeth.

There's no point in ordering separate dishes now, because it was never about eating healthy as much as it was about the fact that he just actually _liked_ those foods, so he just lets Dean order. Dean's the one who can smell and taste the food, he should get to pick. Sam eats mechanically, stopping as soon as he's full, and never orders dessert, because the whole point of dessert is taste, not nourishment. He sticks with his coffee, because he needs the caffeine, but now he can take it black and order regular, cheap, "non-girly" coffee the way Dean's always nagged him to. Alcohol, sometimes, after a job, because even if he can't taste it, he can still benefit from the effects, but the lack of taste means he can drink the cheap stuff, the shit that even Dean avoids. Dean teases him for a week or so about Sam's new not-healthy living habits, but when Sam doesn't react, he lets it go. They have bigger fish to fry.

Funny how many metaphors are food-related.

***

The next time they've got a few hours free and they're in a town big enough for multiple dentist's offices, he tells Dean he's going to the local library, just to get some alone time, then does some Googling and sneaks off. Other than being scolded for not seeing a dentist in ten years (because he can't very well admit that he hasn't seen a dentist _ever_ ), he's told that there's nothing wrong. Not even on the x-rays that he insists they take. All his teeth are where they're supposed to be. Even his wisdom teeth are well-behaved and not impacted, and there's not so much as a suspicious shadow on any of the bones in his jaw or sinuses. The dentist clearly thinks he's a hypochondriac.

When he gets back to the motel, Sam realizes he may shortly be a _dead_ hypochondriac.

Dean is sitting on one of the beds, waiting for him, and his expression is positively murderous. "Where have you been?" It's clear that he expects the answer to be _sucking demon blood_.

"I told you--"

"Town's only got one library and you weren't there."

Sam stares at him. "You were _checking up on me?_ "

"No, Bobby couldn't get you, and he had something he thought would help and wanted you to get started on right away. But you. Weren't. _There_." Rage simmers in Dean's voice. "You _lied_ to me, and you turned your phone off."

"Dean, I wasn't--"

"Dammit, Sam, we've been _through this!_ And here you are sneaking around again--"

"I didn't _sneak_ anywhere! I had something I needed to do, so I went--"

"Went where?" Dean roars. "Where did you need to go that you couldn't _tell me?_ "

"To the dentist!" Sam shouts back. He is so fucking _tired_ of this, of Dean always expecting the worst. Dean has every right to be pissed off at him, Sam's pissed off at _himself_ most days, but this constant suspicion, like maybe Sam didn't learn his lesson by setting Lucifer on the world--

"If you don't want to tell me the truth, Sam, at least come up with better lies!"

"For the love of--" He digs into his bag and comes up with all the shit the receptionist had insisted he take--the receipt, the free toothbrush, samples of floss and toothpaste and mouthwash, the x-rays--and slams it all onto the bed beside Dean. "It's not a lie! I went to the fucking _dentist!_ My phone was off because it's a _medical office_ and it was that or be kicked out!"

Dean picks up the toothbrush, examines it. "Why?" he asks finally, eyes narrow. "You haven't been having tooth problems. Or is that what this new diet has been about? Because something hurts?"

Of course. _Of fucking course_ Dean noticed and didn't say anything, just kept a silent tally somewhere in that overprotective head of his. One of these days, Sam's going to learn that Dean has a sixth sense when it comes to his health. He wouldn't have been able to keep the demon blood a secret half as long if Dean hadn't been so thrown off by Hell. Sam doesn't know if he should resent it, or be touched by it. "It wasn't a toothache," he replies. 

"Why else would you go to a dentist?"

"Because I can't smell or taste anything," Sam confesses. "I haven't been able to for weeks."

Dean gives him one of those inscrutable big brother looks. "I know you've been off your feed, but I thought you were trying to save money or something. But _not tasting?_ "

"Nothing. Not even that battery-acid toothpaste."

"It's not that bad," Dean says--but it's the big brother again, automatically defensive against anything the little brother says. "What did the dentist say?"

"They couldn't find anything." He's not sure if Dean believes him or not, he can't tell. "They said there was no reason for it that they could see."

"Mm-hm." Dean pulls the x-ray out of its sleeve, holds it over the lamp, and peers at it, like he knows what the hell he's looking at. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"It didn't seem important."

Dean's head snaps up, his eyes glittering with rage. "Not _important?_ Are you fucking _kidding_ me? You've got things going wrong in your head _again_ and it's _not important?_ "

"With Lucifer and Michael trying to hunt us down and use us for the Apocalypse? Of course it didn't seem important! We've got other problems!"

"And did it occur to you that _they_ could be the ones doing this?" Dean shoots back, and of course it did, it's the only answer that really makes any sense, but what's Sam supposed to do about it if it is? "I'm calling Cas."

"This isn't worth--"

"What if it's a brain tumor, Sam?" Dean snarls, and Sam blinks. He's known that was a possibility since he realized he wasn't smelling things, but it surprises him that _Dean_ had put the pieces together that quickly. "Don't look at me like that," Dean adds, and there's hurt beneath the anger, hurt so old that Sam's not sure he's responsible for it. "I'm not _stupid_."

"I didn't say--" Sam begins, but Dean's already got his phone out and is dialing. "There wasn't anything on the x-ray!"

"Great, so it's not in the bones. What about the rest of your freaky head? Cas, we need you, there's something wrong with Sam--yeah, I _know_ that, Cas, will you show up anyway?" He rattles off their location and ends the call, and as quick as that, there's three people in the room.

"Dean, I have told you, my powers are limited." Cas is still speaking into his cell phone.

"Got it the first forty times," Dean says. "Will you check him out anyway?"

Cas turns to Sam, still holding the cell phone to his ear. Dean heaves a frustrated sigh, reaches over, shuts it down, and stuffs it into Cas' coat pocket. "He does not appear to be injured," Cas announces gravely.

" 'He' is standing right here, thanks, Cas," Sam snaps. "Dean's overreacting--"

"Sam can't taste or smell anything, and he says it's been going on for weeks," Dean interrupts. "I know we've got that vessel thing going for us, but that doesn't mean we can't get normal human sick, right?"

"No," Castiel says slowly, "it does not." He gives Sam that head-tilted, diagnostic stare of his, the one that always makes Sam want to squirm and hide, because it's like Castiel is looking straight into his soul and for all he knows, even in his weakened condition, the angel _is_. "There's nothing wrong," he finally says.

"He can't _taste_ anything," Dean argues, "that's a pretty major thing wrong!"

"I am not disputing that. But it is not a disease or an injury. It--" Castiel stops, searching for words. "I believe he is still sensing these things, but the signals are not reaching the parts of his brain that would interpret them."

"His wires are cut."

"That is a decent approximation."

Nerve damage would make sense--but that's a hellacious lot of nerve damage, and they're talking about nerves in the nose and tongue. Not a lot of distance from there to the brain. Anything that could do that to him should be-- Well, _fatal_. Or at the very least, have more serious effects.

"I cannot trace the exact disruption," Cas adds. "The nerves are physically there and fully intact. They should work."

"A curse, maybe?" Dean says, finally saying the words they've been avoiding. "We tangled with some witches on one of those last seals, and they weren't too happy when we started shooting up the place--"

"No. Curses leave residue. This is not human magic. Nor angelic or demonic. This is--more. And less."

Great. Riddles. _Just_ what Sam needs.

"Can you _fix_ it? I know you're cut off from Heaven and all that, but--"

Cas gives Sam another one of those diagnostic glares. "I cannot sense a problem to correct, and even if I could, I doubt I have the power now. Perhaps you should seek a human physician."

"I saw the dentist!"

"Not a dentist, a _doctor_ ," Dean corrects. "A real one."

"For this?" Sam asks incredulously. "Because I can't smell? That's not really an emergency."

"You can't taste either!"

"Who was just saying how happy he was that I was eating the cheaper stuff now?" Sam shoots back. 

"I didn't say I was _happy_ with it, I said I thought that was why you were doing it!"

"And anyway, I can still eat and I'm not malnourished. Isn't that the important part?"

"You're okay with this?"

"Well, I'm not _thrilled_ with it, but--"

Dean's eyes narrow. "I got it. It's about your fucking _guilt_ again. You let the Devil loose, so now you think it's no big deal if you can't smell or taste anything! Jesus _Christ_ , Sam!"

"Dean--" Cas begins, but Dean's having none of that.

"They _played you_ , Sam! They've _been_ playing us, _both_ of us, for _forever!_ " Sam blinks, surprised by Dean's words. They make it sound almost like Dean doesn't think this whole mess is his fault. "You feel guilty, I _get_ that, but just sitting around _accepting it_ isn't going to fix _anything!_ "

"Dean--"

"When you go blind and deaf, is _that_ going to be something else you deserve? Because then you won't be able to help us stop this _at all!_ "

"There's no reason to think--"

"It _is_ logical, Sam," Cas says, interrupting the fight. "If these had happened together, it might have been an injury or a curse, but to happen separately, weeks apart, speaks of a greater problem. Perhaps even a progressive one."

It's something that hasn't even occurred to him, and the fact that Cas and Dean _both_ went there, right out of the box--

Jesus. Bad enough he set the Devil free, bad enough he's lost two senses, but now he's so addled that basic _logic_ is escaping him.

***

Dean drags him, almost literally, back to the dentist's office the next morning. That nets them an emergency ENT referral, although Sam's pretty sure the receptionist only makes the call out of sheer terror. "You didn't have to scare her," he says on the way back to the car. Even these days, it's not like Dean to scare the civilians when he could get the info through flirting.

"She was married and we're in a rush."

It takes Sam a minute to remember that the receptionist was, in fact, wearing a wedding band. "Half the waitresses you've slept with had wedding bands!" he protests.

Dean gives him an _are you fucking stupid?_ glare, made all the more impressive by the fact that he's already pissed at the world. "Do you _know_ how many waitresses wear fake wedding bands to scare off the assholes? Now figure out where the hell Merrimack Street is."

It turns out to not matter, anyway. The ENT doesn't believe him. Sam doesn't smoke, hasn't had head or neck radiation, and doesn't have a family history of any of the usual neurological suspects. "You're just overreacting to the anosmia," the ENT pronounces, without doing a single test. 

Sam's pretty sure the doc doesn't believe him about the anosmia, either, since he doesn't bother testing him for it, but like Wiki said, it's a far more common condition and can be caused by a whole lot of very common things. He's told to take some B vitamins and stay away from any nasal medications. If Dean wasn't three seconds from exploding, that sentence might have ended with "and quit huffing." The ENT appears to have mistaken Dean's concern for part of an intervention.

Sam half wishes he could tell the doctor what he's _really_ addicted to, but the psych hospitalization probably wouldn't be worth it.

Dean stalks out to the car growling a litany of four-letter words and zoological terms to describe the ENT's family tree. "I told you it wouldn't help," Sam says, when Dean takes a breath, probably to start in on the relationship between the guy's great-great-great-grandfather and a dodo. "Even if he could diagnose it, there's not a lot of treatments."

"We'd know!" Dean shouts, and a little old lady making her way across the parking lot with a walker and a bandaged nose recoils and nearly falls over. "We'd at least know it wasn't--" He bites that off, but Sam understands. They'd know, for certain, that this was a simple illness, not angelic blackmail or demon mischief or some other supernatural force wreaking its usual havoc on their lives.

"I can handle it, Dean," he says.

Dean glares at him over the roof of the car, like he wants to argue or say something sarcastic, maybe _the way you handled me being dead?_ Instead, he just says, "Are you sure?"

"Like I said yesterday, I'm not thrilled with it, but in the grand scheme of things?" He forces a shrug. "We've got bigger things to worry about. This is minor, Dean. _Really_ minor."

"And if it _does_ get worse?"

"We'll do what we always do." Dean raises an eyebrow. "We'll figure it out when we get there."

Dean sighs. "I don't like it," he says finally, "but if you're sure--"

"I am." As sure as a guy can be when things in his head stop working, anyway.

"Then--" Dean stops, like he's considering his next words carefully. "Then I'll trust you, Sammy. Just-- If it gets worse, _tell_ me, okay?"

_I'll trust you, Sammy._ Sam wants to grab on to those words, clutch them like a drowning man would floating debris. "I will," he says instead. "Promise."


	3. Anaphia

 

With it understood that Sam's medical issues take a back seat to the Apocalypse, they get back to work. They don't mention it, except when Dean (being Dean) tries to take advantage of Sam's anosmia to make him do more of the dirty work. Sam's spent too many days trying not to lose his lunch over a corpse to really argue. Besides, there are plenty of annoying, non-smelly tasks required by their lives, and he's still perfectly capable of reminding his brother just who got stuck rummaging through a fridge full of jars marked "stomach contents" at the morgue in Cheyenne when Dean tries to wriggle out of laundry duty.

Some weeks, those arguments, silly and childish as they are, are the closest that Sam gets to relaxing, the only time he feels really human. He wonders, sometimes, when they've gotten things settled (and Dean's _finally_ doing the damn laundry, it's detergent, not cyanide, for fuck's sake), if Dean's doing it intentionally to distract him, rather than just out of big brother habit--if this is some bizarre way of taking care of him, as so much of Dean's life has been. Dean's not as easy to read as he used to be, so Sam can't be sure.

Food remains problematic, because while the rational part of his brain knows what's going on and is resigned to it, the less-evolved part doesn't understand where all the taste went. Then the cravings hit, his body screaming for _anything_ that has some flavor, almost as bad as when he started detoxing from the demon blood. But it's just psychological, not physical; much as he might _want_ to taste that steak, his body doesn't care if he actually does so long as it gets the protein, and it doesn't start shutting down on him.

The only thing he can do is try to re-train himself, feed his body what it wants and hope his brain eventually makes the connection, realizes that all those wonderful tastes are _just_ memories now. Firm-textured foods are best, since they require chewing and that at least tells his subconscious that he actually _is_ eating. Meat's good. So are a lot of fruits. Bread and pasta are iffy; a lot depends on the specific variety and how it's cooked.

Peeling an orange isn't quite worth the hassle when you don't get to taste it in the end, though, and by "hassle" he is not (necessarily) referring to Dean's lecture about orange peels in the Impala.

Meanwhile, the book they rescued from the vamp/werewolf alliance, as best Bobby can translate it, suggests that the Horsemen's rings are the key to defeating Lucifer, although it gives odds that are hellaciously slim. So they, along with Ellen and Jo, Rufus, and a couple of other hunters Bobby trusts not to take the Apocalypse out on Sam's ass, have been reduced to chasing rumors about Death, Famine, and Pestilence, filling the days between with whatever jobs they stumble across. There are prophecies, scattered here and there throughout history, but they're even less helpful than the overwrought metaphors of the King James version of Revelation. Not even Cas pretends to understand all of them.

The book isn't as specific as they need it to be. Nobody knows, not for sure, that there's not a certain order or ritual that Lucifer has to follow to wake the Horsemen. There's even the possibility that the Horsemen will rise of their own now that Lucifer's free, without any help or interference from him. Nobody _knows_ , and that makes the job about ten times harder, because there's no telling if a job is a normal monster or some harbinger of a rising Horseman. Not when something as simple--and counterintuitive--as an increase in the local birth rate could indicate the presence of Death.

Finally, by sheer chance during an otherwise routine exorcism, Ellen and Jo pick up a rumor about Famine. Dean bullies them off the job with the justification that he's keeping them safe, that it's too dangerous for them to help trap a Horseman after what happened with War.

In a way, that's good, because when it turns out that the trap is for _them_ , Ellen and Jo aren't there for Zachariah to use as hostages.

Damn angel's getting smart. He comes prepared for the angel-banishing sigils, but he hasn't figured Winchesters out yet, not completely, or he would have blocked the window that they have to jump through if they're going to have _any_ chance of escaping. Dean doesn't quite stick the landing and twists his right ankle, nothing major, just enough that Sam has to drive back to the motel. They hadn't been planning on leaving just yet; there was a ritual they wanted to try with Famine's ring that might show them where Death or Pestilence was going to pop up, so all their gear is still there.

Sam's a little light-headed on the drive back, the world wavering at the edges of his vision, but he puts it down to adrenaline and half-quashed panic and focuses on driving. By the time they get into the room, Dean's only limping a little, and then the world spins and goes gray.

He wakes up to Dean slapping him and shouting "Sammy!"

He's lying on one of the beds. He wasn't here before. He's still light-headed and a little fuzzy. "What happened?"

"You passed out."

Dean's hands are bloody and his voice is worried, and together those are never good. "Why--" There's suddenly a knife in Dean's hand and the sound of fabric tearing, followed by cold air on Sam's leg.

"Dean!" He pushes himself up. Well, he tries. Dean plants a bloody hand in the center of his chest and shoves him back down. "What the--"

"You damn near cut your leg off is what." Finished ruining Sam's only remaining decent pair of jeans, Dean sets the knife aside and picks up the bottle of rubbing alcohol that lives in the first-aid kit. "I wasn't hurt that bad, Sam, why did you insist on driving like this?"

"Like _what?_ "

He pushes himself up again, propping himself up on his elbows, ignoring Dean's outraged "Sammy!"

There's a deep gash in his calf, at least six inches long. He must have hit that window harder than he thought; worn as it was, the denim of his jeans should have offered _some_ protection.

Dean's got half the towels piled up on either side of Sam's leg. "Your jeans were stuck to it. I think that slowed the bleeding down some, or you would've passed out on the road." Dean leans on Sam's ankle with one hand and pours the alcohol straight on with the other. "And if you got fucking blood all over my car, so help me--"

That trails off into the usual threats, like Sam's never had to scrub down the Impala before, so Sam just watches Dean clean the wound--and then he realizes what's wrong with this picture. Not feeling the initial injury might be chalked up to adrenaline, but now? He should be _screaming_. There's a reason Dean's holding his ankle down, it's so he doesn't get _kicked_. But Dean might as well be pouring water on the gash. No, water would sting too, just not as bad.

"Sam?" Dean asks, pressing a clean towel against the cut.

"I can't feel it," Sam says slowly, trying to work through this. "I mean, I can feel the towel and I felt the alcohol, but it doesn't _hurt_."

Dean stares at him for a minute. "I guess you're not going to argue when I say you've lost too much blood to take drugs, then." Sam only shakes his head. "This is going to need stitches. You want me--"

"Fix it now. This-- It could wear off."

Somehow, though, he knows it won't.

Dean puts in sixteen stitches--even and neat, the way his stitches always are. Sam sits there and watches in horrified fascination. He's had stitches before, he knows the routine, he knows how much it fucking _hurts_ , and these don't. Not at all. He can feel the needle in his flesh, feel the thread sliding through, which is a thousand kinds of unnerving, but it _doesn't hurt_ , and that makes _no_ fucking sense.

Dean finishes with another splash of alcohol right onto the wound, and Sam doesn't feel that either, just the liquid running over his skin. "Can you stay put until it dries and I can bandage it?"

"Can we take that long?"

"Got plenty of blood here to draw some more angel-proofing," Dean says dryly, indicating the pile of bloody towels with a jerk of his head.

"Then I can manage." He just has to remember that he's injured, since there's no pain to warn him. He reaches out to touch his leg, just to verify for himself that he's not actually hallucinating. There are some minor cuts and scrapes on his hands. They don't hurt either. "You need--"

"I'm fine. The ankle was the worst of it, and it's just a little sore. I just need an Ace wrap and I'll lace my shoe tighter tomorrow." Dean dabs at the cuts on Sam's hands, pushes up his sleeve to check for others. "And you don't feel any of these?" Sam shakes his head. "Maybe--"

"What?"

"Nothing. Where'd you get this bruise?"

"What bruise? I don't--" The words die in his throat as he sees the bruise Dean's talking about, on the outer side of his forearm. It's huge, and was probably actually _black_ at one point, but now it's faded to patchy red-purple with yellow undertones.

"You didn't _feel_ that?" Dean presses his fingers into it. There's a little pain, but it's deep, almost against the bone.

"No," Sam admits. "Maybe in that last fight." That had been--um--the haunted house in Taos a week ago. Come to think of it, he'd recovered from that job pretty quickly. He'd been ready to go the next morning, whereas Dean had just groaned and thrown a pillow at him and choked down four Tylenol with his breakfast whiskey and made them stay another day. Sam had thought it was just because Dean had taken the brunt--ghosts just _love_ throwing Dean into walls, just like supernatural entities have a thing for strangling Sam.

But he'd gotten slammed into a wall too, _twice_ , and years of experience tell him that he should _not_ have been so spry the next day. Fights like that always take at least _three_ days for full recovery, _if_ they're lucky and don't get calls telling them to get to Bobby's ASAP because somebody caught a rumor of a Horseman.

"Maybe," Dean says, completely unconvinced.

Bruises are mild, even a bruise as ugly as that one, but with the other weirdness affecting his senses, maybe Dean's right to be worried. After all, Sam just watched his own skin be sewn up without anesthetic and didn't even--

Skin.

It hits him, and the realization comes out in laughter. It's crazed, hysterical laughter, and it makes something deep in his gut hurt--maybe where he got punched, or pulled a muscle in that leap out the window--and all he can do is roll over onto his side and curl up and laugh harder, and he doesn't think anything is _ever_ going to make him stop laughing, not after all this, because it's that or sink into pure despair and weep until he dies of dehydration.

"Sam?" Dean grabs his shoulders and gives him a rough shake. "Sammy! Snap out of it!"

Sam can't. He's trying, now, but he _can't_. No more than he can feel the pain of those stitches. Or the sting when Dean slaps him.

"We forgot," he finally wheezes.

Dean just stares at him, waiting for those last few giggles to work their way out. "What did we forget?" he asks finally. Gently, like Sam might break. He could be right.

"We were so worried about me going blind or deaf--" A last bubble of hysteria chokes off his explanation.

But Dean, always smarter than he lets on, puts it together anyway. "Son of a _bitch_ ," he says in disgust, and whirls around and punches the wall.

There are _five_ senses.

 

*******

Life without pain is one of those things that's much better imagined than experienced.

First off, he's not _completely_ pain-free. He still has _deep_ pain, in the bones and muscles. His legs still cramp up if he spends too long sitting in the car, and when, in a fit of depression over this entire mess, he goes on a drinking binge, he wakes up the next morning with a head that feels like it's ready to explode. It's only the pain receptors in his _skin_ that have gone dead. Sure, it's a little bit of an advantage in a fight--except that ignoring a little pain now sometimes means _much_ more pain later, and a good gut-punch or kick to the crotch can still take him down. Dean's never been much for letting him drive, but now he insists on double-checking to make sure Sam's not bleeding before he's allowed behind the wheel, and he's not even pretending that the concern is (entirely) for the car.

Second, Sam's never realized just _how many_ little pains there are in his life. Paper cuts from the heavy stock of old books, from handling files and folders, from making copies. Minor burns from lighters and matches and too-hot coffee. Injuries from fights. The increasingly rare playful, between-brothers smack or punch.

There's a sudden dullness to life that he wasn't expecting at all. It's almost like he's relied on the pain to remind him that he's alive.

During downtime, before bed or while sitting in the Impala, he carefully examines his fingers and hands to make sure everything's healing right, that hangnails and knuckle-scrapes aren't breeding infection, that he hasn't accidentally split a nail to the base and not noticed. After fights, as soon as the opportunity arises, Dean insists on checking Sam over for fractures and bleeding. No more quick showers, either; that's his only real chance for a full-body inspection, just to be on the safe side, just in case something got by Dean's eagle eyes. At least Dean's not insisting on doing those himself. Sam has limits, even if Dean doesn't.

But as senses go, this is really not that much more annoying than the anosmia. Nobody _wants_ pain, anyway, and it's not like he doesn't have Dean to tell him if he's bleeding. Or limping. Or bruised. Or breathing funny.

Somebody really needs to explain _boundaries_ to his brother, but damned if it's going to be him.

 

*******

A couple of days after he scrapes the stitches out of his leg, just when he thinks he's getting a grip on this whole living-without-pain thing, he comes out of the bathroom shirtless, because he thought there was a tee bundled in with his sweatpants and there wasn't, and he's greeted by a scandalized " _Sammy!_ "

He frowns at Dean. "Dude, it's not like I came out here naked." They have rules. Not a lot and not very strict, not after a lifetime in each other's pockets, but they have rules, and he hasn't violated one of them. And he's not injured--he just finished his becoming-usual thorough inspection before he got into the shower. That gash on his leg is going to leave one ugly scar.

Dean doesn't answer the remark. "What happened?" he demands instead, his voice rough. "What the ever-loving _fuck_ did you _do?_ "

"Um. Bathed?"

Dean gives him that special _quit being a smartass, that's my job_ look that he's perfected over the years, and says patiently, like Sam's four again, "You're burned."

It's such a weird thing to hear that all Sam can respond with is "I am not."

Dean grabs his arm--being very careful about where he puts his fingers--and drags him in front of the mirror. "Say that again."

There are raw-looking patches of red all down his chest and arms. "But--I don't--"

"I _told_ you the water heater ran hot, Sam, why didn't-- _Son of a bitch!_ Your back is a _mess!_ You've got fucking _blisters_ coming up!"

"But--" This doesn't make sense. Not that it doesn't hurt, that he expects, but the water hadn't been hot. The water hadn't even been _warm_. Sure, he'd heard Dean's warning, but he'd assumed Dean had just used up all the hot water, the way he always does when he gets the first shower, and he'd just been glad it wasn't icy. It's a hazard of living out of these crappy places; the only time they can both reliably get hot showers is when they're at Bobby's.

"You better check your legs," Dean adds.

"The water wasn't hot," Sam says, and he's not sure if it's stubbornness or just denial. "There wasn't any hot water left."

Dean gives the burns on Sam's chest a significant look, then turns on the hot water at the sink. Steam boils up almost immediately, fogging the mirror.

Steam. There had been steam. Why hadn't he noticed that? Steam and a lukewarm shower? That doesn't make _any_ sense. He should have _known_ something was wrong from that--

Dean, figuring he's made his point, twists the faucet to _off_. "Don't sit down," he orders when Sam starts for the bed. "Just-- Just strip and let's make sure you didn't blister anything important."

Anything imp--

Interesting. He can't feel pain, but he _can_ feel the blood drain out of his face.

For once in his life, luck is with him. He hit a water temperature that only did damage with sustained, direct contact from the spray but otherwise cooled quickly enough to spare him serious scalds. Tonight, of all nights, he opted to not wash his hair, which spared him head and facial burns. Only his back is actually blistering; most of the rest of the burns are on his arms and legs and chest. The skin is angry red and already tight, like a bad sunburn. He picked up the habit of keeping his back in the spray a long time ago, after pulling a muscle at school and not being able to afford any other kind of therapy. That's why he's blistered on his back, but it's also what saved him from second-degree burns everywhere else.

 _Everywhere_.

Half an hour later, Dean has soaked every spare towel and the top sheet from Sam's bed in cool water, wrapped Sam up in them, and put him to bed on his stomach, so he won't pop the still-forming blisters and open himself up to infection. There will be bandages and burn ointment tomorrow, unless by some miracle they can get Cas to show up _and_ he can spare the mojo to heal him.

Sam's had scalds before, just not this extensive, and he knows that cool on burnt skin feels cold. All he feels, though, is wet. He doesn't even feel the heat that has to be radiating from the burns. "Bring me my laptop--"

"You're not feeling temperature now," Dean says flatly, "there's nothing to look up."

He's right. He's exactly right. Research is for when you don't know what's going on. The Internet couldn't explain why his ability to sense pain suddenly vanished; it's not going to have anything to say on losing his ability to sense temperature overnight, either. There are people who have this problem, but most of them were born with it. Getting stuck with it as an adult usually requires a massive neurological injury. Which he doesn't have. He hasn't even taken a solid hit to the head in weeks. There's nothing, absolutely _nothing_ , that accounts for this. Not even in his freakish life.

First pain, and now temperature. Next....

Sam is suddenly keenly aware of the wet fabric clinging to his skin, the slightly-damp pillowcase under his cheek. _This_ is what's going to go next. The ability to feel _anything_. All his skin is going to go dead.

If this is the universe's punishment for setting Lucifer free, it's a pretty good one.

 

*******

Sam wakes up, which means he must have fallen asleep, even though he can't remember drifting off. It takes a minute for him to remember why he's on his stomach, another to remember why he's wrapped up like a mummy, and another to figure out why the sheets feel different on his back than they do beneath him. The mattress and bottom sheet are still damp beneath him; the top one and all the towels have dried out.

Somewhere in the room, out of Sam's sight, Dean is talking. "No, not that, Bobby, just-- Is there such a thing as a-- Shit, I don't even know what to call it. A sensory curse? Some kind of spell that would shut down his senses?" Long pause. Sam doesn't move, because if he does, Dean will end the call, and he clearly needs to feel like he can do something. "No, I am _not_ drunk! Something is happening to Sam-- Cas can't even figure out what it is, let alone try to fix it, and Sam-- He can't smell, he can't taste anything, he-- Bobby, he came out of the shower tonight with _second-degree_ burns because he couldn't tell the water was hot!" Another pause. "Yes, Bobby, I've forgotten everything I ever learned about first aid," Dean says acidly. Sam doesn't know how Bobby reacts, but _he_ flinches. "Of fucking _course_ I took care of it! It was just one spot, the rest was mild. Long as it doesn't get infected. In which case he won't _feel_ it. God help us if his appendix decides to call it quits."

As long as the pain's deep, he'll feel it. The fever, now, that would be questionable. A systemic infection will have other signs, though.

But without being able to sense pain and temperature, will he be able to feel it _before_ it's bad enough to kill him? He'll have to think on that. Dean might actually have stumbled across a legitimate worry.

Dean ends the call. Sam closes his eyes quickly, not wanting Dean to know he heard any of that. He hears water running in the sink, and then it's gently poured over him, a cup at a time. Dean, soaking the towels and sheets again, by hand, rather than waking him up to unwrap him. Then the sheet over his leg is lifted away. Fingers brush the healing gash--checking for infection, no doubt, or to make sure Sam didn't accidentally cut himself again taking the stitches out.

"Dammit, Sammy." The words are hardly more than a whisper. From anybody else, Sam would call them _prayerful_. "What the hell are we into _now?_ "

 

*******

There's only one thing worse than having Dean Winchester pissed off at you.

That's having Dean Winchester pissed off at you and _hovering_. Dean's one of those weird people who is perfectly capable of being infuriated to the point of murder while still trying to wrap the object of his anger in bubble wrap. _Especially_ when it comes to Sam.

Sam's pretty sure the only other people who can manage that are actual mommies, but--like with using the word "nightlight"--he knows better than to say that out loud.

Even after Cas heals the blistering, Dean's reluctant to inflict a long car ride on Sam, apparently convinced that if he does, Sam will either keel over from a massive systemic infection, or somehow transmit said infection to the Impala. Between that and the steady diet of canned chicken soup (Sam double-checks, but according to the mirror, he did _not_ turn into a four-year-old when he wasn't looking, and seriously, Dean, what part of _texture_ do you not get?), when Bobby calls, Sam doesn't even wait to hear what the job is before he accepts it.

"You never struck me as the type to go gung-ho over zombies, Sam," Bobby says dryly, and Sam just blinks.

Even then, it takes the better part of an hour to persuade Dean that he can _do_ this. He's pretty sure Dean only relents because Bobby actually _asked_ \--Bobby asks for help about as often as Dean does--and they _owe_ him.

Dean spends the whole job reminding Sam to bundle up, occasionally trying to force gloves and a hat on Sam, and nearly getting his arm ripped off by a zombie because he's distracted by worrying about Sam's welfare.

Much as Sam hates to admit it, the worry's not entirely unreasonable. It's winter now, they're in the ass-end of Idaho, and Sam doesn't feel the cold. Even with his breath fogging the air and snow at near-blizzard conditions, his brain keeps insisting that the air is at that elusive perfect temperature, neither too hot nor too cold, the kind of day that dreams are made of. In the last chase, he splashes through an icy puddle and doesn't realize it until they're back at the hotel, when Dean notices him dripping and orders him out of his soaked socks just in time to head off frostbite.

The humiliation doesn't end when they've got all the twice-dead creatures salted and burned. (Zombie flambé: just another reason to be grateful for anosmia.) Now, every night, Dean insists on checking the water temperature before Sam gets into the shower, even if it means Sam's standing there in a towel, tapping his foot impatiently, for ten minutes until Dean's satisfied that the water is _just right_.

Dean has apparently mistaken Sam for Goldilocks. Sam would say that out loud, except that Dean would probably use it to justify a week's worth of jokes about how Sam needs a haircut.

Sam was just going to forgo hot water entirely--it's not like he can _feel_ the cold water, and that way Dean can have the hot showers--but that's clearly not good enough for Dean's standards. Or Dean's afraid he'll freeze. Dean _insists_ that they keep trading off, the way they always have. Sam tries locking him out, but the motels they stay in don't have locks that can withstand a Winchester, and it turns out that Dean is not about to let something as minor as a _door_ stand in his way.

Every time Sam thinks he can't be humiliated more....

It doesn't help that Sam's a terrible patient. He _knows_ he's a terrible patient. He always has been, as everybody from Dad to Jessica's mom has told him. But Dean's smothering irritates the ever-loving _fuck_ out of him, and the number of times on the zombie job alone that Sam has to restrain himself from punching his brother is ridiculous. He's not some fucking damsel in distress, dammit. He's just--sick. Granted, it's a _weird_ sick, but it's not like they've _ever_ done anything normally.

But anything wrong with Sam, and Dean's childhood programming comes charging to the front--thanks _ever_ so much, Dad--especially now that it's something that can actually cause problems. Not smelling or tasting were minor issues in lives like theirs. Not being able to feel pain and temperature?

That's _dangerous_.

Sam knows he's lucky Dean's not insisting on strip-searches after every fight, but damned if the interrogations aren't intrusive enough--do _not_ get him started on the string of damaged bathroom doors that kills three of their precious scammed credit cards with damage surcharges--and it's not whining if it's _entirely justified_. He's a grown man, for fuck's sake. He took care of himself for four months while Dean was dead--and for three other months when Dean was dead that other time, that time that only he remembers. He knows how to check himself for wounds. It's nice that Dean cares, don't get him wrong, but Sam doesn't need to be bundled in bubble-wrap and spoon-fed.

Really, Dean, _he can check his own legs_.

 

*******

Dean's after him all the time now, like he's some kind of delicate little flower that'll wilt in a strong breeze. Despite the dark cloud of the Apocalypse looming over them, it's almost like they're kids again, Dean in full-on Mommy-mode, nagging him to put on a jacket and tie his shoes and clean his plate. All they're missing is a drunk and/or injured father snoring on the couch. Dean even starts paying attention to what Sam's eating-- _real_ attention, not just poking fun--and he orders things he knows Sam's always liked, the healthy shit that Dean wouldn't normally order, even on behalf of somebody else, if you paid him in limitless pie and pristine Impala parts. God knows every time Sam requested anything before, Dean ordered the exact opposite just to be contrary.

This morning is probably not going to be any different.

Of course, before they even get into the diner, Sam, distracted by Dean's rant at the local so-called classic rock station, manages to jam his finger in the car door hard enough to break skin. By the time they get to the restaurant door, it's dripping blood enough that an exiting customer notices, so (after fending off Dean's attempts to "help") Sam goes to the diner's restroom to rinse the blood off and check for serious damage to his fingernail. That's just what he needs, losing another nail; the one that got ripped out by those pagan gods two Christmases ago still hasn't recovered all the way.

But the nail seems okay. The damage is almost all skin, nothing severe, so he slaps on a Band-Aid--he always carries a few these days--and heads out to the table.

The lady behind the cash register glares at him as he walks by. She's kind of surprising; this area's demographics skew heavily white, but she looks like a full-blooded Native American. This area is also fairly conservative, but she has bells tattooed on both cheeks and wears an inch-wide black choker with a stylized silver skull dead center. He's pretty sure that silver belt--more skulls, some snakes, and a few symbols that he feels like he should know--is hiding a knife, and her nails are painted a shiny red the color of dried blood. She looks like she belongs at a Goth-themed nightclub, not a random Midwestern diner.

"Nice dress code they have here," he says to Dean when he sits down.

Dean nearly chokes on a mouthful of coffee. "Dude, she's the _owner_." He says it fairly respectfully, so Sam guesses that Dean's already tried and been shot down. Possibly with the use of the knife. She doesn't look like the type who'd have any patience with flirting, especially of Dean's less-than-subtle style. Sam hates that he missed it.

Their food comes then. Dean, of course, has pancakes and more pork products than anybody should ever put on a single plate. Sam, though, has oatmeal and fruit and _milk_ , of all the things. Fruit in a place like this has to be expensive, even if the owner gets a discount for scaring the shit out of the vendors. "Dean, I can't _taste_ it."

"Yeah, but it's what you like."

"But--"

"For fuck's sake, Sammy, just _eat_ , will you? If you can't taste it, it doesn't matter anyway, right?"

Sam sighs, and watches Dean eat while picking at his own breakfast. A few months ago, this would have been a perfect breakfast, assuming Dean didn't tease him over it, but now, texture is all he has left, and oatmeal doesn't have much. The fruit, not much more; oranges and grapefruits have a decent heft between the teeth, but this plate is mostly overripe melon, and melon just kind of squishes into goo under the least bit of pressure. It makes it that much harder to swallow the stuff. But he's not about to do anything that Dean might interpret as a rejection of the gesture. Not when he's trying so hard. Not when he's expecting Sam's resolve to snap.

And maybe he shouldn't let it anger him, but it does; Dean and Cas and maybe even Bobby are all expecting him to fail, and no matter how stoically he tries to take this, nothing he does can change their minds. Never mind that, even if it _is_ Lucifer doing this, sooner or later it's going to occur to Dean to chat with Michael about it. What's going to stop him from saying yes if it means Sam's healed? It's not exactly without precedent.

Sam orders coffee and pours the rest of his milk into it, just because he's not seven anymore, and there's a sudden sharp sensation in his chest, right over the sternum, that lances through him all the way to his back. It's not pain, not exactly, but it's not _not_ pain, either; it's deep enough that it could be, but it just feels...off. He rubs at the spot, wondering, then stops, and not just because Dean's looking at him funny. Something's not right. "I think the next stage is starting."

"Starting?" Dean asks. "Don't they usually just _happen?_ "

Trying to not look like he's having a heart attack, Sam presses experimentally against the spot. Nothing. "There's a numb spot in the middle of my chest that wasn't there five minutes ago."

"No way it just, you know, fell asleep?"

Through great effort, Sam manages to _not_ roll his eyes. "I think it would be really hard to make your sternum fall asleep."

"Good point." Dean considers. "You think it'll spread?"

"No. I _know_ it will." He pokes a lopsided melon ball with his fork. "I can't reach, but I think there's a spot on my back, too."

Dean raises an eyebrow. "This sounds more abnormal than usual."

"It is." He's found that much in his research. Usually, when people start losing sensation, due to diabetes or whatever, it starts at the extremities, the peripheral nerves in the toes and fingers, and works in toward the spine. This isn't even _anatomical_ ; nerves radiate from the brain and spinal cord, so the spot on his back _might_ make some sense, _if_ it was starting in one nerve connected directly to the spine, but the one over his chest? _Without_ any of the connecting skin going numb?

"Why would this one go gradually, anyway?"

Sam shrugs. "The skin is the largest organ in the human body. Maybe that has something to do with it."

"I dunno, man. Seems like it would be easier to zap everything at once."

"Easier, but it would take more power. If this thing is trying to stay under somebody's radar, maybe it would be too much power at once."

"Lucifer never struck me as the hiding type. Every time we turn around, he's in--" Dean stops, giving him a sideways look. "You don't think it's Lucifer, do you?"

"I don't know. It-- It doesn't _feel_ like him, Dean. Why would he do all this to me to make me say yes when he'll just have to waste time fixing it all if I do?"

"But he can--" The owner slams the check onto their table without even pausing, hard enough to rattle the silverware. "Fucking Goths," Dean mutters.

"I think she'd scare most Goths," Sam says dryly, and she overhears and turns to glare at him, the most threatening thing he's seen in months (zombies and angels included), and Dean laughs.

 

*******

He catches Dean on the phone that afternoon, a call Dean plainly doesn't want him eavesdropping on, given the way Dean quickly says, "Bye, Bobby," and hangs up and shoves the phone into his pocket. It's not the last time, either; Dean spends more of his time that night in the hall outside their room than inside, and it's not because he's suddenly respecting Sam's need for alone time.

Sam knows something's up when Dean hands him the keys the next morning.

Dean keeps getting phone calls over the next few days--at least one an hour, if not more--and he plainly _expected_ these calls, since he's letting Sam drive; if Dean were driving, he'd have to keep pulling over to jot down notes and numbers. Some of the calls are from Bobby, a couple from Cas, but from the way Dean talks--semi-respectfully, keeping the pop culture references to a minimum, name-dropping Bobby and Ellen and Rufus and Dad at every opportunity--most of them are from strangers. And the vibe he's putting off--

Sam's pretty sure it was the same one he gave off when he was trying to find a way to fix Dean after that electrocution, or in the last days before the deal came due. Desperation, stubbornness, denial, and a refusal to _not_ hope, no matter how much smarter that would be.

Sam can't really blame him. They have no guarantee that this isn't going to kill him. For all they know, this is somebody's way of committing murder piecemeal, a way designed _specifically_ to make him suffer.

This phase, at least, is fairly mild. The initial stabbing sensation (it wasn't properly pain, since he can't _feel_ pain anymore) was a one-off; now, he can tell where the feeling is going to fade next because there's that pins-and-needles tingling beforehand--like when your foot or hand falls asleep and then wakes up, only in reverse. It's uneven, progressing in fits and starts. The first time he tries to map it with a washable marker, about a week after it starts, he winds up with a ragged seven-pointed star shape on his chest, one point practically in his armpit but another hardly off the sternum.

While it's weird to feel fabric on one patch of skin and not the next, it's not incapacitating. Yet. That won't hold, he knows. Already he's having problems. The patch on his back extends to his waist, to where the gun usually rides in his waistband, and he's sat down on the damn thing three times already because he's forgotten it's there. What's going to happen when this hits his arms and legs? Is this going to affect how he walks?

There's not a lot of information out there on life without touch. What little he can find is not reassuring.

And that's when the phone calls stop and Dean announces, "We're going to Florida."

Sam's avoided jobs in Florida ever since the Mystery Spot fiasco. Dean isn't as picky, since he's not stuck with too-vivid memories of watching his brother die over and over again, but for the most part, he's been good about Sam's job priorities (any other state, Canada, Mexico, Hell, _then_ Florida). It helps that Sam hasn't argued about Dean's sudden refusal to consider anything within a hundred miles of Detroit.

Not today, though. There's a job in Florida and Dean's hell-bent on taking it, despite the five other jobs Sam finds, one of which is just the next town over.

Sam knows his brother too well to not suspect that something's up.

Not until they're there and neck-deep in a grave does Sam find out _why_ Dean was so intent on crossing the continent for a salt'n'burn that any newbie could have handled. It didn't even require interviewing survivors, because Dean already knew exactly who and where the ghost was. The job literally consists of driving to the cemetery and digging up the body for torching.

They pry open the casket (modern hermetic caskets _suck_ when it comes to their purposes) and they're face-to-ick with the poorly-embalmed, overly juicy corpse of Mr. Walter Walterschied, whose long-dead parents plainly hated him and who accidentally smothered himself when he fell out of bed. Now his spirit is terrorizing a nursing home. Sam looks down at the gloppy remains, hoping that they don't have to resort to the kerosene, and says, "So this guy is worth an eighteen-hour drive?"

Dean immediately looks guilty and nervous, and covers it by dousing the deceased in lighter fluid. "This guy? Not really."

Uh-huh. "Then why--"

"Because there's a doctor here who knows about hunters." Sam knows exactly what Dean's going to say next. "A neurologist."

Dean's damn lucky that Sam already tossed the shovel out of the grave.

 

*******

The neurologist is a round dark man who sees them after everybody else in his office has left for the day. Turns out a hunter helped him out at some point, so he repays the favor by providing specialist-level treatment--something hunters almost never get, despite every last one of them getting enough blows to the head to really, honestly _need_ a neurologist. It's also free of charge, provided the hunter's vouched for. Now all of Dean's calls make sense. Sam thought he was looking for _curses_ , not actual _doctors_. Dean hates doctors.

Dean also insists on sitting in on the appointment, using the argument--well, to be honest, the logic is so non-existent that even with a lifetime of exposure to Dean's thought processes, Sam can't really follow it. It seems to have something to do with hunting partners needing to rely on each other, but there may very well be a little bit of _I made the appointment and he didn't so I don't fucking care if he's the patient, I'm gonna be there_ mixed in.

That's the point where Sam realizes he's just along for the ride, HIPAA be damned.

The full medical history is all _kinds_ of fun. Fantasies about being able to be honest with medical professionals are one thing; having to actually _do_ it is another.

The scar on his back? Oh, somebody killed him once. Last time he had sex? It's been awhile. She was a demon inhabiting a brain-dead woman. She tricked him into freeing Lucifer. Reason for the tattoo? Anti-possession. Yes, very useful when having sex with a demon, like he's never heard _that_ before.

And, of course, the big one: "Your brother indicated that you're in recovery. From what substance?"

Sam shoots Dean a glare. Dean glares right back, that implacable _I'm in charge and you're gonna do what I say or I'm gonna make you_ glare that Sam's hated since he got old enough to recognize it. "Demon blood."

The neurologist's eyebrows shoot up so high that they threaten to abandon his head entirely.

After that, the actual exam is kinda anti-climactic. With no nurses in the office, the doc takes Sam's vitals himself--all perfectly normal, as Sam knew they would be. Since this is neurological, not a full physical, he doesn't have to strip; the doc just asks that he pull his shirt open, and probably wouldn't have done that if this whatever-it-is wasn't affecting the sensation in his skin. The doctor presses the stethoscope against Sam's chest, and makes a noise. "What?"

"You did say you're not feeling temperature, correct?"

It's clearly a rhetorical question, since they've already been through the shower story. "Right. Why?"

"You're the first person I've ever met who never flinched away from the stethoscope. Everybody says these things are too cold." Sam blinks. "Also, it's been in the fridge."

"You keep your stethoscope in the _fridge?_ "

"Your brother did warn me of a few things."

Of course he did. Dean doesn't react to Sam's glare.

A few minutes of testing with a needle tell the doctor and Dean what Sam already knew: most of the skin on his torso has gone numb. The doc doesn't insist on Sam standing up to see if it's gotten below the waist and Sam's not about to enlighten him, especially not with Dean sitting in, but it has started to creep over his shoulders and halfway up his neck. "Interesting," the doctor murmurs, which gets him a murderous glare from Dean, and he quickly retreats to his desk.

"So, any ideas, doc?" Sam asks. "Since I'm so interesting and all."

"This is only the first step," the neurologist says, tapping at his computer. "Tomorrow, we do the tests."

"Tests?" Dean asks, in as close to a neutral tone as Dean Winchester can get.

"MRI, CT, EMG, nerve conduction. Maybe an EEG, I'm not sure. We can probably avoid the ENG, since you don't seem to be having issues with dizziness or vertigo."

"Doc, if I want alphabet soup, I'll go buy a can," Dean says irritably.

The doctor goes into the main office and comes back with several information sheets. "Here. These explain most of them. Show up at eight sharp. They'll have to fit you in around tomorrow's appointments. Paying customers get precedence, I'm afraid. Bring a book. You'll probably be here all day and waiting for most of it."

He's not kidding. Dean insists on dragging Sam out of bed at _six_ , like a kid on Christmas morning. They sit outside in the car until somebody unlocks the doors, and then they sit in the waiting room--and then the MRI waiting room, then the CT waiting room. In between, lab techs take vial after vial of blood and Sam gets the anosmia and ageusia tests he _should_ have gotten from that ENT months ago. It's well after noon when they find out he can't have the EMG until three, and because they want him asleep for the EEG, he can't have that until after the EMG. The nurses send them off to find lunch, with the stern admonition that Sam can't nap and shouldn't have caffeine. Because grown men nap so often. Especially grown men with overprotective older brothers.

Seriously, the only things that have saved the techs from dealing with Dean are the female nurses, because half of them seem to have fallen in love with Dean at first sight and Dean never turns down _that_ kind of attention. Sam's pretty sure that Dean scores at least once while Sam's stuck in the MRI machine, trying not to compare the experience to being buried alive in the world's noisiest grave.

It's oddly reassuring. Dean _is_ entirely capable of shutting out the _entire_ world, including women, when he gets worried. If Dean's still sneaking out for romps in the linen closet, it means he hasn't reached full crazy yet.

It's nearly seven that evening when Sam's finally done with the EEG (Dean's worry temporarily alleviated by his merriment at the sight of Sam with electrode glue clumping his hair into spikes, and if those pictures make it to Bobby or Jo, Sam is going to _murder_ his brother), at which point the staff surprises him with the news that he's having a barium swallow and endoscopy the next morning. Sam just stares at the tech, who continues to list procedures like Sam should have already known or suspected that they'd be doing these things, and it's not until Dean interrupts and threatens to drown the man in his own container of electrode glop that they both find out that the neurologist wants to evaluate the function of his tongue, mouth, and throat.

After an hour and a half getting the goop out of his hair (thank God his hands and scalp haven't gone dead yet, because asking Dean for help with this would be _beyond_ humiliating), Sam starts researching those tests--these are GI tests, for fuck's sake, not things he'd thought to look up when his _skin_ was giving out. Every account he can find indicates that barium tastes nasty, though, so hey, _there's_ a silver lining.

Dean, of course, never one for sitting still, tries to convince him to go out, especially after the novelty of Sam's temporary hair disaster wears off. "A couple of those nurses were interested in you. Never know, Sammy, this could be your last chance. Before _everything_ goes numb, I mean."

"Thanks, Dean, that makes me feel so much better." There _are_ things he does not want to discuss with his brother. The sensitivity of the skin on his dick--or the lack thereof--is on the top-10 list. So is the fact that he's probably never going to have sex again. The sense of touch is kinda necessary for that.

"I just meant, what with the not feeling and all, eventually it's gonna--"

Sam resists the temptation to hit his head against the table (it won't hurt, but he could probably give himself a concussion), and makes his voice stay very calm when he says, "Moving out from the chest, remember?" Dean stares at him blankly, and Sam sighs and uses simpler language. "You're too late."

The look of sheer horror on Dean's face before he mumbles something and runs like hell is almost worth it.

 

*******

The tests show nothing, of course. There is absolutely no physiological cause for what he's feeling--or, more accurately, not feeling. Everything seems to be in proper working order. He leaves with a triple diagnosis--idiopathic anosmia, ageusia, and anaphia (progressing).

"Idiotpathic?" Dean asks.

"Idi _o_ pathic," Sam corrects. Dean picks the worst moments to play dumb. "It means 'cause unknown.'"

"There's a medical term specifically for 'we have no fucking idea'?" Dean demands, and stomps off to the Impala, swearing.

Sam sighs and starts to apologize, but the doctor waves it off. "Take these," he says, holding out a box of drug samples. "These are meant for standard peripheral neuropathy patients," the neurologist warns, "and they probably won't help. But it's worth a try."

Sam accepts the box, feeling the cardboard scrape against his nails, and wonders how long it's going to be before he can't even feel this.

"There's also something in there I want you to start taking immediately," the doctor says, and taps at the largest container in the box. "Start taking it now, and it will have kicked in by the time you need it."

"Fluoxetine?" Sam reads off the lid. That sounds familiar, but he doesn't know why. "What's that?"

"You might know it by the brand name," the neurologist says. "Prozac."

" _Prozac?_ I don't--"

"You are literally losing your senses," the man says, "and you _are_ still human. Depression is going to be a perfectly normal reaction, and I think maybe one you and your brother can't afford. There's an insert with the possible side effects in the box."

Sam mutters a thanks--the doctor is doing the best he can, really--but he can just imagine what Dean's reaction to _anti-depressants_ is going to be.

 

*******

The box of drugs finds a new home on the doorstep of a free clinic somewhere in Indiana, all the little blister packs intact.

By then, everything's numb.

 

*******

Despite the numbness, everything still works normally. And, like the thing with his pain receptors, it only affects the skin, so any _internal_ sensations are still working fine. His body still recognizes when it's hungry or thirsty or needs the bathroom. So at least Sam's not adding incontinence to his ever-lengthening list of humiliations, like some people who don't have a sense of touch.

For all that he can't feel pain or heat or the damn _air_ , every muscle still moves the way it's supposed to, no stiffness or hesitation or anything. He spends a lot of time on long drives just watching his fingers move, as quick and fluid as ever, and wondering at the sheer weirdness of _seeing_ it without _feeling_ it. At least, he does until Dean gripes, "Will you stop _doing_ that? You look like some stoned hippie who thinks his fingernails are telling him the secret of life."

The problem is that all the actions he's learned over the years--walking, driving, writing, typing, feeding and dressing and bathing himself--are reliant on sensory cues from his skin. He can't feel the ground beneath his feet, so he's constantly stumbling, even on perfectly level surfaces. He can't feel the keyboard under his fingers--it's _worse_ than trying to type with gloves on, because the last time he had to do that, he could at least feel the gloves. Don't get him started on the nightmare that's the touchpad. And that's just the laptop; he can manage to answer his phone, but only because the button is larger and slightly separated from the others. Dialing or texting is out of the question. So's driving; his reflexes are still good, but even though his muscles remember the precise distance between the Impala's gas and brake pedals, he can't tell how much pressure he's putting on them. Their one trial run nearly sends Dean through the windshield when Sam brakes too hard, and there's no way Dean's risking his baby again. Sam can hold a pen to write, but he has no sense of how much pressure he's putting on it and half the time the point tears through the paper, even when he switches to medium points. It takes forever for him to get dressed in the morning, and that's on a good day. Buttons are a nightmare. Zippers aren't much better.

Meanwhile, he's covered in bruises from hitting his elbows and knees and every inch in between on every hard surface he encounters, from the Impala to the shower fixtures. He's not only lost sensation, he's lost all sense of _where_ his body is in relation to the rest of the world. Proprioception isn't just hard to spell, it's extremely difficult to explain to an older brother who just wants Sam to stop denting the car. There's nothing about _this_ on the Internet, or in the paperwork the neurologist gave them. His best guess is that he's ahead of the science, that nobody has figured out _how_ proprioception really works, and that losing touch means his brain isn't getting some important information. For all they know, feeling the pressure of air on your skin plays a role in figuring out where your limbs are.

Everything works, but he moves like an old man, fearful and apprehensive. He can't do _anything_ unless he's watching himself do it, and watching carefully. He's so reliant on visual cues that if he closes his eyes to keep the shampoo out of them while he's showering, he loses all sense of balance and topples over.

Luckily, the first time that happens, he doesn't hit his head on any of the fixtures, because the _last_ thing he needs is for Dean to find him concussed in the shower.

He starts ordering his own food again, biscuits and chicken nuggets and French fries, because finger food is way easier than trying to manage utensils and not as humiliating as asking Dean to cut up his food for him. Sure, he can't judge his grip strength, and a lot of those fries get smashed between fingers that can't tell they're applying too much force, but it's still way safer than utensils. His vision's still okay and his depth perception _seems_ fine, but every time he tries to use a fork, he winds up stabbing himself in the face. He can't figure out why, but there's a lot of _whys_ about this that he thinks they may never figure out.

At least Dean only laughed the once. In his defense, he thought Sam was playing a prank, because honestly, who stabs himself in the face with a _fork?_

Even brushing his hair is a hassle--a double-barreled one, as he can't feel the brush in his hand _or_ the brush in his hair and he keeps carving bloody lines in his scalp. For the first time in years, he's seriously contemplating getting his hair cut as short as Dean's just because it'll require less care. He really only keeps it as long as he does out of some scrap of childhood rebellion anyway, one last "fuck you" to their quasi-military upbringing. But Dad's been dead for years and Sam's supposed to be an adult, so maybe it _is_ time for a haircut.

The job? The job is out of the question when just getting yourself clean in the shower, then dry, then _dressed_ is a major--and exhausting--accomplishment.

He can still read, sure, but he's been through all the books they picked up their last trip to Bobby's, and the other research materials are on the laptop or online, which brings him back to typing.

Anosmia and ageusia were a walk in the park compared to this. And Dean-- It's a miracle Dean's hovering hasn't gotten them both _killed_ yet, since Dean keeps forgetting his own welfare in his quest for Sam's.

But the one time Sam suggests that he get on a bus for Sioux Falls, so that Dean stands a chance of getting _something_ done, Dean shouts him down, so much that they get kicked out of the hotel.

 

*******

Sam wakes up, thirsty. It's dark, the only light the glare from the blue-glowing clock that came with the room. That at least keeps him from panicking, thinking he's gone blind. At this point, after all, it's not a question of _if_ , but _when_. He can't imagine that whoever's doing this would stop now.

He throws back the covers and gets up--and realizes he's actually only tangled himself up when he finds himself flat on his back on the mattress. He keeps forgetting to make sure he's completely uncovered before he tries to get up. A few weeks can't undo a lifetime's habits.

Dean's asleep for once, the nightmare dark soothed by the blue clock light, and Sam doesn't want to wake him up, not with sleep so precious these days. So he waits for his eyes to adjust, then sits up, squints at the vague whiteness that's tangled around his leg, and spends several exhausting minutes getting it _un_ tangled before he can swing his legs over the edge of the bed.

Okay. One obstacle down. Now he just has to get to the-- Hm. Cooler would be safer, sink would be less alcoholic. He'll try the sink. It's not that much farther away.

He uses the faint white glow of the bedsheets as a guide to get around the bed, but then he's on his own. It's a decent motel, the carpet not all that worn, so there's no tears or rips to trip him up. On the other hand, the fact that it's in better condition means his feet will get better grip on it, and if he doesn't compensate properly--

Sam stretches one arm toward the wall, so that when he does trip he'll catch himself that much quicker, and starts the slow, careful walk toward the sink.

Naturally, when he falls, it's to the other side.

He comes to in bright light, with Dean leaning over him, pressing a towel to Sam's head and shouting stuff that Sam's too scrambled to make out immediately. Something about being careful, he thinks.

But he _was_ careful. Sam's head aches, that deep below-the-skin pain he still has, so there's no point in arguing, even though Dean's shouting just makes his head feel worse. Careful just doesn't get him that far these days.

Dean finally lets him up--but only to go as far as the bed, making Sam sit there while _he_ fetches a glass of water. "No more dark rooms," he says sternly, and Sam chokes in an attempt to not strangle on water and irony. "You're going to leave a light on so you can _see_ if you need to get up, you got me, Sammy?"

Leave the light on. The thing he's been _trying_ to do for the past year without Dean noticing.

Sam would laugh, if it wouldn't make the inside of his head hurt.

 

*******

Sam sets the alarm on his phone--well, he has Dean set it, damn tiny buttons--earlier now. He'd put the thing on vibrate, but he can't really feel it, even if it's vibrating in his hand, so he just picks the least-obnoxious ringtone and gives Dean his best apologetic face if it wakes him.

He really _does_ hate to wake Dean, especially now that Dean's sleeping a little better, but the honest truth is, Dean can just roll over for another hour, and he'll still finish his morning routine and be ready before Sam is. It only takes Dean a few minutes to get dressed. Sam-- Well, on a good day, when he doesn't jab himself in the eye with his toothbrush or claw open his scalp with his hairbrush or do some other bizarre injury to himself, it takes him an hour. Injuries up that total considerably.

If the injury is bad enough that Dean has to help him bandage it...sheesh.

Sam almost has it down now, though. If he tends to most everything _before_ he gets dressed, the spill damage is brought down to a manageable level; skin is easy to scrub, and it's not a big deal if the sweats he sleeps in have toothpaste stains. And since the _inside_ of his mouth and throat haven't gone numb like everything else, he's at least not accidentally performing tonsillectomy by toothbrush. His ability to sense pain and temperature are gone there, but full numbness never has hit. It took him a while to realize why: this thing wants him _alive_. Losing all sensation in his tongue and throat means he won't be able to chew or swallow properly, maybe not even suck on a straw, and that way lies slow starvation.

He hasn't mentioned that to Dean, though. The last thing he wants is Dean's reassurance that putting in a feeding tube can't be that much more complicated than turning a Walkman into an EMF reader. Stitches are one thing. Surgery, on the other hand....

None of his sweats are presentable for public, not even by their loose standards, not after that disastrous attempt at eating Chinese for dinner yesterday, so this morning starts off with a fight with a pair of jeans. And then there's the struggle to get his fingers to work the buttons and zipper, and really, getting dressed should _not_ be this fucking hard. He's had less exhausting fights with dead people.

How do people with _real_ crippling diseases stand this? For years and years on end?

By the time Sam's finally dressed, Dean's been in and out of the bathroom, is fully dressed, and is ready, trying to hide his impatience at this delay in his breakfast. He's taken all the bags to the car already, even made a couple of phone calls. But there's still one more step in Sam's process, one of the hardest.

He has to get his shoes and socks on.

It shouldn't be so hard. He's been doing this all his life, after all, it's practically unconscious at this point.

Muscle memory only gets you so far when it relies on cues from the skin.

He sits down on the bed--carefully, because his ass is numb, and he's already fallen off the edge of the bed three times this stay, he's got more bruises just there than the Impala has guns--and forces numb fingers to start loosening the laces on his shoes. He can't just slip them on anymore, the way he normally does in a hurry, because he can't feel his feet going into them--or coming _out_ of them, for that matter, which led to a fall as spectacular as anything he suffered during that whole rabbit foot debacle. Then he has to get the damn things on his feet, which is just way harder than it should be. He can see his toes wiggle, his ankle move, can even feel those muscles in a dull, distant way, but without functioning sensory nerves in the skin, the effectiveness is just not what it should be. And then there's the whole adventure of _re_ -tying them....

He gets the laces loose enough that he can get his feet into the shoes and sets them aside. Now for the socks.

It doesn't matter that his fingers still work. The socks are old and worn and adhered to themselves with static cling. Fear that he'll tear the fabric makes him tentative, because he doesn't have that many left. For the last week, every time he's tried, he's managed to put at least one finger _through_ the cloth. This may be his last pair of socks without holes.

"Sam." There are other hands there suddenly, taking the sock out of his hands, and before he knows what's happening, Dean is kneeling on the carpet in front of him. He shoves Sam's hands away, just like he used to when Sam was little and couldn't tie his shoes and Dad was impatient to hit the road, and silently slides the sock over Sam's bare foot. With the expertise of long experience, Dean puts the other sock on, gets Sam's feet into his shoes and ties the laces, double-checking that they're not so loose that Sam will step out of his shoes and not so tight that they'll cut off circulation to his toes.

The room goes blurry and his breath hitches. When he looks down, his hands have clenched on the edge of the bed, nails tearing into the worn bedspread. He thinks he's crying. He's not sure. If he is, he can't feel the wetness on his face or taste the salt on his lips, and if he tries to swipe at his eyes with his sleeve, he's just as likely to poke himself in the eye and do some damage.

He's a grown man, and he can't even dress himself.

He can't even fucking _cry_ about it without hurting himself.

Through it all, Dean says nothing, doesn't even give Sam an accusing or impatient or pitying look, and when he's satisfied that Sam's shoes are on properly, he stands, dusts off his knees, and picks up Sam's jacket. "Come on. It's a long drive to get to Bobby's."

Sam can't look up, can't meet his brother's eyes. "But--Cas said--"

"Fuck what Cas said. Fuck the damn Horsemen and Lucifer and the Apocalypse. We're going to Bobby's and we're staying there until we figure this out."

"Dean--" He wants to argue, wants to point out that there are billions of other people on this planet who _need_ them to focus on the real problem, on fixing this mess he started. They can't ignore the _Apocalypse_ just because Sam's having trouble with his shoes.

But this is Dean, and if there's one thing Sam knows, it's how single-minded Dean gets when presented with a threat to Sam's welfare.

"Now put on your damn jacket and get in the car," Dean says, holding up the jacket for Sam, just like he did when Sam was little, and it takes everything he has not to break right there, to gather up what little he has left of his dignity and shrug into the jacket and follow Dean out to the car.

*******

Dean drives crazy, even for Dean, and they reach Bobby's after dark. The back porch light is on and the gates are open, waiting for them. Bobby meets them at the door and gets out of the way quickly when he sees just how awkwardly Sam is moving. He's gotten a lot better with the wheelchair.

"You boys want something to eat?" Bobby asks.

Sam doesn't hear Dean's answer, because his next problem is staring him in the face.

Stairs. Sam hadn't even thought about the stairs. It's been forever since they took the trouble to set up in one of the spare rooms instead of the living room floor.

But there's no place for him to sleep down here. Bobby _has_ to have the couch. Sleeping on the floor is going to put him in Bobby's way, and he can't get out of Bobby's way quickly, the way Dean can. That's assuming he doesn't somehow manage to do more damage to himself in the process, since he can barely walk over level ground without turning an ankle; he doesn't want to think what he could do to himself by trying to dodge a wheelchair. He's going to _have_ to use one of the bedrooms upstairs.

"Sammy?" Dean sounds worried, and by the look on his face, he hadn't thought about the stairs either. "Can you get up there?" he asks. This time, his voice is calm, even. This is hunter-to-hunter, demanding an honest assessment of his abilities. No room for ego or shame or brotherly bravado.

"I--" Sam reminds himself that everything still _works_ , he's just been avoiding steps because he keeps forgetting to watch his feet to make sure he clears the riser. "I think I can make it." He'll have the wall to lean against, and there's no reason to rush. As long as he can take his time, he should be fine.

Dean nods, and reaches around him to switch on the lights that illuminate the stairs and the upstairs hallway. "I'll be up in awhile." Sam doesn't need the half-guilty glance Dean shoots Bobby to understand. Dean wants him safely upstairs so that he and Bobby can discuss _him_.

And Sam is just too tired to argue.

"If you need help--" Dean begins.

"I'll yell." He forces a smile. "Go on, I can do this without being stared at. By either one of you."

There's a gruff chuckle from Bobby, who wheels back towards the kitchen. "You sure--"

"Dean, _go_." To emphasize his point, Sam grabs on to the railing and takes that first step, managing--to his own surprise--not to slam his toes into the riser. Two steps later, he stops, just to check. Dean's not standing there anymore, at least. He can't hear their voices. Maybe they moved out to the porch to make sure he couldn't hear them. Sam sighs and turns his attention back to the stairs.

Habit takes him to the room they used when they stayed summers here as kids. Back then, it had a set of rickety bunk beds that collapsed beneath them more than once (staying at Bobby's has _always_ been an adventure), but somewhere along the line, Bobby managed to find a pair of twin beds--still a little cramped for Sam, but not as dangerous as the old bunk beds and way better than the floor. More importantly, except for a few stacks of books up against the walls, the room is practically empty, a beacon of sterility in Bobby's overcluttered library of a house. Nothing to trip him.

He automatically claims the one farthest from the door--Dean always takes the bed closest to the entrance--and lies down. Dean thinks he's going to do it. Dean honestly thinks he's going to say yes. He and Bobby are discussing how to stop him right now. What else would Dean want to discuss with Bobby without Sam overhearing? It can't be _just_ his health, they've been talking that to death with Bobby and Cas and anybody who'd stand still long enough ever since this started. And if Bobby has come up with a breakthrough to fix it--well, Sam really needs to be part of _that_ conversation. It's _his_ body they're discussing here.

At some point, he dozes off, but he's awakened by cursing. Sam opens his eyes to the amusing sight of Dean hopping on one bare foot and swearing fit to blister paint. "Problems?" Sam asks mildly.

Dean glares at him, but limps towards the other bed. "Man's gotta learn to quit stacking books everyfuckingwhere," he mutters. "I think I broke my toe."

"On what?"

"A brick in a book cover, from the feel of it." Sam chuckles. "Yeah, sure, laugh it up. Just because you can't--" He freezes. "Shit, Sam, I'm sorry, I didn't--"

"Hey, at least I don't have to worry about the _pain_ when I stub my toe," Sam says, forcing himself to make light of it, because there's really no choice, and besides, there's no point in Dean tearing himself up about a stupid slip of the tongue.

"But--"

"Dean. It's okay." It's laugh or cry some days, and right now, he's choosing to laugh. "Just go to bed before your toe finds a first edition of _War and Peace_."

Dean mutters something, but crawls into bed, gets himself settled, and reaches for the light.

Sam can _see_ his fingers twitching. Bobby's house is safe ground, always has been--but this is the side of the house that faces away from the security lights of the salvage yard, so it's also dark. There's no light outside their window at all. This room has always been that way, but it's been years since they've slept up here.

"Don't," Sam says, and Dean freezes. There's a flash of terror in his eyes, terror that Sam's figured it out. "I need it, remember?"

Dean relaxes. As far as he knows, his secret is safe another day. "Sorry. Forgot." He pulls up the covers--an old quilt that Sam thinks he remembers from the _first_ time they stayed here. "Night, Sammy."

"Night." Sam rolls onto his side, away from his brother, and looks at his hand where it rests on the mattress. The top cover on his bed is another old quilt, but the sheets look new. He wonders if they feel new. He can't tell. He can't even _smell_ whether or not they're new. Does Bobby actually _own_ anything new? Even the wheelchair looks used, and that lamp looks like it might have belonged to Bobby's grandparents.

But Dean will be able to sleep, as well as he ever does, anyway, and that's something.


	4. Anacusis

If Sam's honest with himself (and contrary to popular belief, he does try), the last good night's sleep he had was some time before Jessica died. All the nights since have been a tangle of nightmares and visions, pain and anxiety, grief and guilt. He's had _full_ nights of sleep, but due to sheer exhaustion, alcohol, or very rarely prescription drugs. It's hardly the same thing.

Now he can hardly sleep at all. He goes to bed early, because Dean's gone into full mother hen mode and there's just no point in arguing, any more than there was twenty years ago. Bobby has connections to get the heavy drugs, and Sam knows damn well that Dean _will_ drug him if he thinks it necessary. (If their situations were reversed, Dean would _kill_ him if he tried it, naturally, but arguing is like trying to convince the sky that it should be green.) But he doesn't sleep. He lies there all night, staring at a ceiling lit by a lamp that he's leaving on for Dean and that Dean thinks he's leaving on for Sam, sometimes dozing, most times not.

He's afraid. He doesn't dare admit it to Dean, but he hasn't been this terrified since the floor opened up at Ilchester. He lies there afraid to sleep because he knows that, sooner than later, he's going to wake up blind or deaf. 

Tonight, Dean actually went to bed kinda early. _Collapsed_ is more accurate. The combination of boredom, frustration, and mother-henning means he's taken it upon himself to make Bobby's house safe for Sam, as well as tackling the cooking, cleaning, shopping, and customer service for the salvage yard _and_ hunters, _plus_ helping with the research and phone lines--anything to keep himself busy and not hovering over Sam 24/7, since Sam's already threatened to take the Impala for a spin into the nearest tree if Dean doesn't back off. Then, this afternoon, a sudden storm apparently caused every driver in Sioux Falls to forget how to drive, and the sheriff called Bobby in hopes that he'd know somebody she could call to help clear the roads, since he can't run _his_ tow truck anymore. Dean's never been one to ignore a call for help, even of the mundane variety, so he filched Bobby's keys and headed out before Bobby knew he was gone.

Sam hasn't heard Bobby swear like that since just after he realized he was stuck in the wheelchair.

So, tonight at least, while Sam's trying to fall asleep, Dean's asleep in the next bed. The familiarity--Dean's snoring has been the sound of _safe_ for more nights of Sam's life than not--should help, but for some reason, it isn't. Sam finally gives up and climbs out of bed, as quietly as he can, so that he doesn't wake Dean up. His feet are bare; socks are still giving him trouble. Bare feet on Bobby's floors mean he's risking splinters at best and sepsis at worst, but having both feet amputated is a better option than dignifying the slippers Dean bought him. (Actual, honest-to-God fuzzy pink bunny slippers. With little pink ribbon bows between the ears. _In Sam's size._ Where do you even _find_ those?)

Sam takes his time going downstairs, watching every step. The railing is no longer rickety--that was one of Dean's first projects--but he keeps one arm outstretched anyway, fingers trailing along the wall, to catch himself if the railing gives way or he loses his balance. It takes five full minutes to get to the first floor. Bobby is sitting at the desk with the usual bottle and half-full tumbler and stack of books. "Do you ever actually sleep?" Sam asks.

"Could ask you the same thing," Bobby retorts, not looking up. "Did your helicopter finally pass out?"

"My heli-- Oh. Funny."

"It's a gift."

Sam gets a beer from the fridge, thinking that the alcohol might help ease him to sleep, and he goes back into the living room and sits down in the chair beside Bobby's desk--the chair that used to be _behind_ the desk. "Anything good?"

"If people knew how many different versions of Revelation there were, we'd have a lot fewer Biblical literalists," Bobby grumbles, indicating an impressive stack of antique books. He sets his pen down, leans back. Sam feels himself bracing for interrogation. This is the first time, really, that they've been alone since he and Dean got here. Dean's been a little...helicoptery. "How're you doing?"

"Fine."

Bobby snorts. "Yeah, you wanna try that on somebody who's not your brother?"

"Really, I--"

" _Sam_. You think I don't know what it's like to have your body stop working on you?" He smacks the arm of his wheelchair. "Ain't exactly something you just get over."

Sam looks down at the beer that he's holding carefully in both hands so that it doesn't slide through his numbed fingers. There's condensation on the bottle, betraying its temperature. He can't feel the cold or the moisture on his skin; he can barely sense the weight dragging at his hands. "I'm adjusting," he says, opting for honesty. "There's not much else I can do."

Bobby grunts, acknowledging what he means. Sometimes, the only thing you _can_ do is adjust. This isn't like when Dean died, when he had a universe to rail at, demons to kill, vengeance to take. Hell, this isn't even like when _Dad_ died, when he tried to bury a lifetime of guilt in a renewed dedication to hunting.

"Dean--" He hesitates, but Bobby gives him that _don't try to weasel out of it now, idjit_ look, and Sam wilts. "Dean should be out there. Trying to stop this."

" _You_ tell him. I like my head where it is."

"I'm as safe here as I'm going to be anywhere. He could be-- I don't know. _Doing_ something. Finding the Horsemen. Aren't Ellen and Jo tracking another spike in births somewhere?"

"Didn't pan out. Turns out there was a bad storm that knocked out the power for awhile about nine months ago. Nothing unnatural about it."

Another lead gone. No lead has led to _anything_ since the one that almost got him and Dean caught by Zachariah. There's no way the angels and demons have just given up, not after all the centuries of scheming that they put into this. Where _are_ they? This is why Dean needs to be _out there_ , not stuck here with him.

Unless.... "Bobby, this thing that's happening-- Do you think it's them trying to force me to say yes?"

Bobby gives him one of those patented inscrutable looks of his, one Sam never has learned to read. "Hard to say. Might be, but it's awfully subtle, from everything I've heard about 'em."

Sam nods, and covers his nervousness by taking another careful drink from the bottle. "Then-- Do you think something's punishing me? For letting Lucifer loose?"

"Jesus Christ, Sam, is _that_ what you're thinking?"

"I started all this, Bobby. Everything that's happened since--even you getting hurt--it's all my fault."

"That's not-- Sam-- Shit." He pries the beer out of Sam's hand, then reaches into the desk and produces another glass. He pours a little for Sam, then tops off his own glass and downs it before refilling it. "Look, I ain't saying you didn't make some mistakes. But it's not all on you. Me, you, Dean, even that angel of his--we've all fucked up. We _all_ contributed to this mess. You can't take all the blame, no matter how much you might want to."

"But if I hadn't--"

"If you're going to throw blame around, you're going to have to start with your mama and the deal _she_ made." Sam flinches. He _can't_ blame Mom--Dad and Dean raised him to believe she was a saint, that there was _nothing_ negative about her. All the things they've found out since might have shaken Dean's faith in her memory, but they just haven't been enough for Sam to break that childhood conditioning. "All this started before you were even _born_. Hell, probably before your parents were born. Blaming yourself-- Sam, you might as well blame your daddy for Vietnam, it'd make as much sense. You were trying to do the right thing. Cut yourself some slack."

"But good intentions don't--"

"You know who came up with that saying?" Bobby snaps. "Some sheltered asshole who never had to make any decision more complicated than which cereal to eat at breakfast. You did the best you could with what you knew at the time. There was no way-- No. They _made sure_ there was no way for you to figure things out. You got played, you and your brother both. Now you can either whine about it or do something about it."

"Yes, sir," Sam answers, half automatically.

Bobby chuckles. "Don't 'sir' me, I ain't your daddy." They share rueful smiles, and then Bobby sighs and picks up the next book in the stack. "You better head back to bed before your helicopter comes looking."

"I guess." Sam finishes the rest of his beer, carries the bottle back to the kitchen for disposal, and heads for the stairs. He stops halfway there. "Bobby?" Bobby glances up. "Do me a favor?"

"Sure, Sam, what?"

"Next time Dean starts hovering, call him a helicopter. I want to see the look on his face."

Bobby laughs, and Sam smiles all the way to bed.

*******

Sam's looking for something he can safely make for lunch (no microwave, no stove, no oven, no knives, no scissors, no can opener, no undoing twist ties) when he hears a woman's voice outside. Thinking maybe Ellen or Jo is here, and really wanting to talk to _anybody_ who's not Bobby, Dean, or Cas, he makes his way out to the porch. The dark-skinned woman out there isn't anybody he recognizes, though, and since Dean is somewhere under the hood of a burgundy car that's way too shiny to belong to Bobby's inventory, Sam guesses she's a customer of the mundane variety. She certainly doesn't look like a hunter, despite having an ugly ridge of scar where one ear should be. Most hunters don't wear pink, for starters. He wonders what her opinion of bunny slippers is, because he knows where she can get an extra-large pair extra cheap.

She looks up, and for a second Sam imagines hostility in that dark gaze, before Bobby looks over and sees him. "Sam, bring me my receipt book, will you?"

"Um, sure." Bobby actually _owns_ a receipt book? Where would he--

"On top of the file cabinet inside the door!"

Sam finds it--thankfully it's on top of a stack of invoices, not under them--and manages to get out into the yard without stumbling or falling down the steps or dropping the book. The pen slips out of the coil before he gets out the door, but he knows that Bobby keeps a couple of pens in his chair, so that's not a big deal. He just needs to make sure to pick it up on the way back in, before he steps on it and accidentally gives himself a homemade tattoo on the sole of his foot. 

"This'll hold you for now, but you really need a new engine," Bobby's telling her by the time Sam gets out there, just as Dean emerges from under the hood.

"So you've been telling me." She has a faint accent, more a lilt, that Sam can't quite place. Not quite Jamaican. One of the other Caribbean islands, maybe. "And I told you, when _you_ can do it, it will be done."

Bobby looks like he wants to strangle her. And Dean and Sam, for witnessing this. "Well, then, it ain't happening anytime soon!" he snarls, snatching the receipt book roughly out of Sam's hand.

"I could--" Dean begins.

"I trust Bobby," the woman says flatly. "You, I do not know." Dean shrugs, a clear _whatever_. The woman looks at Sam. "You are bleeding," she says, and there's that hostility again. Sam has to be imagining it, he's never met the woman and will probably never see her again, so why would she be hostile? She's missing an ear and talking to a man in a wheelchair, so surely she doesn't have some backwards belief about keeping the not-perfectly-healthy out of sight of normal people. Or does she think his overly-careful walking is some sign that he's mentally deficient?

" _Sammy!_ " Dean grabs his hand and snatches a cleanish shop towel from the worktable. "Dammit, Bobby!"

Sam looks down. The sharp end of the coiled binding from the receipt book has left a groove through his palm. Great. Another injury.

"Get inside and fix that," Bobby orders. "Sorry, Sam."

"It's okay," Sam says, but that's all he manages before Dean's practically shoving him towards the door.

The first aid kit is bigger these days, all the stitching supplies and ointment and bandages fresh and new, since Sam's managed to use up all of the older stockpile. Dean douses his hand in alcohol, then butterflies the gash shut and wraps gauze around Sam's hand. "You gotta be more careful, Sammy."

"I'm _trying_." It's not like he could've stopped Bobby from grabbing the book that way. Dean just gives him a look, so Sam changes the subject. "Who is that woman?"

Dean shrugs. "Somebody Bobby knows. Car's decent, engine's crap. He's willing to make her a decent deal on a new one, but she insists _he_ has to do the work, and...well."

"So she's not somebody we're _supposed_ to know?" If she was a hunter, or knew hunters, it would explain the hostility. Everybody's bound to know about his role in setting the Devil loose by now.

"Like a hunter? No." Dean makes a noise. "I'm not sure Bobby even knows her name. He didn't introduce me, anyway." Dean repacks the first aid kit while Sam stares at his hand, and takes the opportunity to glance out the kitchen window, where Bobby is still arguing with his customer. "Shit."

"What?" He can't be surprised that Bobby's arguing. Bobby's philosophy is "the customer is usually wrong," and it applies to _both_ sides of his business.

"I know that look. He's gonna be in a bitch of a mood tonight. Up for an adventure in town?"

Sam flinches, he can't help it. Eating is enough humiliation here. Dean and Bobby understand about his decreased dexterity. They don't judge him for eating with his fingers, don't laugh when he drops spoons, don't give him condemning or pitying looks when his food falls out of his numb hands and smears on his shirt. Out in public, with strangers watching and _staring_ , cruel adults and clueless little kids.... "Dean, I--" 

"We'll get pizza," Dean cajoles. "You know, that place where they make the really thick kind and cut it in squares. You can manage that." Sam can't even argue, because that's the kind Dean's been bringing back from town ever since they got here. The squares _are_ easier for his numbed hands to handle than regular slices, and the thickness means it's harder for him to accidentally smash it. "And if anybody raises a stink, then, I--I--I'll punch them and steal their pizza."

The ridiculous, childish threat should make him smile. It doesn't. "I don't know--"

"Look, it's that, or sit here and watch Bobby drink himself into a coma, and since he sleeps in the living room, it's not like we're going to be able to miss it, and I'd just as soon not, okay? I had enough nights of that with Dad." Dean's voice becomes pleading. "C'mon, Sammy. You've barely been out of the house since we got here. I nearly brained myself on that hood when I saw you on the porch."

Sam smiles, in spite of himself. He never could stand to hear Dean beg. "Okay."

*******

They get back late--well, late for Sam's new hours; by their usual standards, it's still early. They sneak in as quietly as they can, but Michael and Lucifer could have their showdown on top of him and Bobby probably wouldn't hear. He's slumped in his wheelchair, passed out. "You head on up," Dean says, tossing his jacket across the banister. "Let me get him situated."

Sam stands in the doorway, watching, while Dean lifts Bobby out of his chair and puts him into his makeshift bed. "Upstairs, Sammy," Dean growls, starting to pick up the bottles. "I can't-- Just go, okay?"

Sam starts climbing the stairs, any of the good mood left from dinner gone. He knows exactly what Dean almost said: _I can't take care of you both_. Dean's right, and he shouldn't _have_ to, but Sam can't think of anything he can do to lessen that burden. There's less that he is _able_ to do every day, and it gets worse with every sense that dies. When they're all gone....

He's not ready to face that yet.

There's tomato sauce on the bandage on his hand, but after he's changed into his nightclothes, Sam manages to get the thing undone (doing so involves his teeth) and the gauze unwrapped. The cut beneath isn't so bad that it still needs to be covered, at least not while he's sleeping. Maybe not even tomorrow, unless he tries to do something heavier than usual, like help Dean move books.

"Didn't I tell you not to walk around barefoot?" Dean's voice demands from the door. "There's--"

"I am _not_ wearing the fucking bunny slippers, Dean."

"I'll remind you of that when your foot gets infected after you find a piece of glass the hard way." 

"There's not any--"

"You remember the witnesses, right? Broke damn near every window in the house?"

Sam swallows hard. He'd completely forgotten about the windows. They've all been repaired, but he doubts if Bobby did more than sweep the floors to get the worst of the glass shards up, and if wasn't in the path to something he needed, like his bed, he probably didn't do that much. If Bobby even _owns_ a vacuum, Sam would be surprised. Maybe he should look. He thinks he can manage a vacuum, if he's careful. A broom, definitely, if he's careful with his hand.

Maybe that's something he _can_ do. Bobby hasn't been upstairs in months. Sam could try to straighten it up some. Cleaning doesn't require a lot of fine motor skill, and if he pays attention, takes his time, it would be relatively safe. It'd be a little way to pay back Bobby, and be one less thing Dean has to worry about--and it would keep Sam out from underfoot, so that Dean and Bobby and Cas don't have to find new places to have those pesky conversations about what to do when he gives in and says yes.

Dean, meanwhile, is still glaring at him, and Sam suspects that the bunny slippers are about to make an appearance whether anybody wants them or not. "I'll be more careful," Sam says meekly. "Promise."

Dean eyes him, like he doesn't believe that at all, but when Sam only gets into bed, he relents. "Fine. But when it happens, I get a whole _week_ of 'I told you so' without a single whine."

He's still muttering about ingrates and glass shards when he finishes his nighttime routine and climbs into his own bed. He doesn't even try to turn out the light anymore. "Night, Sam. Wear your slippers if you need to get up."

Sam smiles at the ceiling. Dean just never quits. Which reminds him.... "Dean?"

Dean rolls over. "What? You need something?"

"What's up with Detroit?"

Dean sits straight up. " _What?_ " he barks. Instant temper: Just add Detroit.

"Ever since we started hunting together again, whenever anybody mentions Detroit-- It pisses you off. Why?"

"You don't need to--"

"I think I do." He pauses, and pulls out the big guns. "Tell me while I can still hear."

"Sam, come _on_ \--"

" _Dean_."

Dean sighs, and punches his pillow--hard--before lying back down. "Fine. It's just-- While you were off playing bartender--"

"Busboy."

"Whatever. I-- Zachariah tried to make me see things his way. I don't know if it was real or some kind of--of holodeck thing, but he took me to the future."

"The _future?_ " Going to the past was one thing, but now the angels could take them into the _future?_

"Five years. It-- It was a disaster, Sam, Lucifer had let out the Croatoan virus, half the country was gone, Cas had fallen all the way to human and was spending most of his time high and holding orgies, I was leading some kind of piss-ant rebellion, trying to find a way to kill Lucifer-- It was a fucking _mess_ , and that Dean told me it was all my fault for not saying yes to Michael."

"I don't understand. Detroit--"

"I thought you were dead at first. That's what they said. And then he told me the truth. That you didn't _die_ , you said yes. In Detroit. You-- There wasn't a you anymore, it was just Lucifer wearing you. And then he--the other me, I mean--he led a suicide mission to kill Lucifer. He got his people killed, he got _Cas_ killed, and then-- I watched Lucifer kill me. Only he was wearing you, so it was like watching _you_ kill me. Not exact, I could tell it wasn't _you_ you, but--"

"Dean--"

"And then I come back to the here and now, I think, we can change this, if we just work together, if we don't cut each other off again, if you don't turn into the Devil and I don't turn into a complete psycho, and you start talking about a book dealer in Detroit-- I know I overreacted. I just-- For all we know, Lucifer's already set up there, you know? Every news story out there's complaining about how Detroit's already the second circle of Hell, how do we know that's not part of his plan too?"

"No, I get it." If he'd known all that, he would have insisted on steering clear of _Michigan_ , not just Detroit. Maybe any state that touches one of the Great Lakes. He doesn't want to take any risks either. Especially not with this whatever-it-is attacking him. It doesn't feel like Lucifer to him, but that doesn't mean it's not.

Then he realizes what Dean said, what got lost in the maze of traveling to the future and two Deans and Lucifer possession. "Cas was holding _what?_ "

*******

Sam opens his eyes. They focus on the ceiling overhead. He can't hear snores, so Dean must already be awake and downstairs. He concentrates--sometimes he can pick up a bit of conversation drifting up the stairwell--but all he gets this morning is silence. Maybe Dean is getting sneaky in his old age. Or Bobby's still passed out.

He sits up. There's daylight outside the window, so it's time to turn the lamp off, if Dean hasn't already. Sam reaches for it--and freezes.

Dean's lying sprawled in his bed, mouth open, sound asleep, not a snore to be heard.

_Oh God._

He knew it was coming, but.... 

The room goes all blurry, and for a panicked heartbeat Sam thinks his vision is going, but then his nose gets stuffy, and there's a sharp ache deep in his throat, at the border of the pain/no pain zone, and his breath hitches painfully deep in his chest. He's not going blind. He's crying. 

He can't control a reaction he can't even sense.

But if there was one thing he learned to do in his bizarre childhood, it was cry silently, because neither Dad nor Dean ever had the patience for tears.

He rolls over onto his side, away from Dean, to smother any sobs in the pillow he can't feel.

*******

The silence is somehow thicker, more sinister than he expected. Sam hadn't accounted for the fact that normal deaf people can still feel vibrations, but for the most part, he can't. Maybe, if something's very loud and very close, an explosion of thunder that rattles the bones, he will, but there's no convenient thunderstorm to test the theory.

The light through the window is starting to develop its afternoon slant when Dean decides that Sam's slept long enough and comes upstairs to check on him. He pulls back the covers, looking worried and confused, and he leans _way_ too far into Sam's personal space, like he's been taking lessons from Cas. Sam thinks he might be shouting.

Sam just listlessly points at his ear and pulls the covers back up over his head.

They're jerked right back down, of course. Dean says something, but Sam's never been able to lip-read, not very well, and all he can read of Dean's body language right now is "worry." Dean finally quits talking, stares at him, then disappears from Sam's line of sight for a moment. He comes back with a scrap of paper with _Deaf?_ scribbled on it. Sam nods, wishing for once that his brother would just leave him alone to be miserable, but Dean instead writes another word. _Talk?_

"I don't know," Sam answers automatically. Dean blinks, then nods and gives Sam a thumbs-up.

Sam didn't hear it, but he felt the air scrape in his throat, felt the barest vibration up through the center of his head. 

Internal sensations still work fine.

He's lost his hearing and kept his voice. He really wishes it had gone the other way.

*******

Sam doesn't bother getting out of bed. Not really. He makes a couple of bathroom trips and gets a glass of water, but that's as far as he cares to push it. He's not even hungry. The sandwich Dean brings up sits forlorn on the dresser, the lettuce going limp as Sam watches.

He doesn't bother the next day, either. 

He has no plans to even try for the third.

Maybe he should have listened to the neurologist about the Prozac.

Sleep is somehow easier now. Not more restful, of course; he still has his nightmares, old friends that they are, but when he wakes up from them, he finds himself able to just roll over and go back to sleep. Lethargy is actually very soothing. He really should have tried it before.

He wakes up when he's yanked out of bed and hauled across the hall to the bathroom and shoved under a running shower, sweats, top sheet, and all. Sam blinks to get the sleep and water out of his eyes and focuses on Dean, standing there, arms crossed, _daring_ him to argue. "No," Sam says, and reaches to pry the sheet loose. "I'm going back to bed."

Dean's mouth moves, but Sam can't quite catch it. Dean then shoves a washcloth and a bar of soap at him, so forcefully that Sam accepts out of reflex--then, for some reason, he jabs Sam in the chest with one finger and uses his other hand to hold his nose. 

It takes a few minutes for Sam's still-sleepy brain to interpret that as _You stink._

Sometimes, Dean is scary brilliant, and this is one of those times. Any protest about how he needs to be up and about, or at least not sleeping the day away, or even that he needs to eat, Sam could argue away. This?

Sam can't smell, so he _has_ to take Dean's word for it. Hell, he could smell as fresh as the proverbial daisy, _but he has no way of knowing_. And Dean, the bastard, is _using_ that.

"I hate you," he says, and Dean just grins. Then he taps his watch a couple of times, then holds up ten fingers, then five. "Fifteen minutes?" Sam guesses, and Dean nods. He makes this weird movement with his hand, like he forgot to put the sock puppet on it-- "And then we're going to talk?" Dean nods again, says something too quick for Sam to even pretend to lip-read, and stomps out. Sam doubts he's going any farther than their room, and he _knows_ there'll be no leeway on that fifteen minutes.

He sighs, and pulls at his soaked shirt. It's going to take him fifteen minutes just to get out of all this wet fabric, but did Dean consider that? Of course not. 

He's pretty sure he's in there longer than fifteen minutes, but Dean doesn't pull back the shower curtain to check on him. He's been in the bathroom, though. When Sam pushes back the shower curtain, the pile of soaked clothes is gone and there's fresh clothes waiting for him, with those damn bunny slippers parked neatly on top. 

Sam sighs, goes through the no-longer-quick process of getting dry and dressed, and wonders if there's any way he can lose those fucking things without Dean buying something worse.

*******

A lifetime spent in each other's pockets actually helps. He and Dean have been reading each other's body language all their lives, sometimes consciously, most times not. Dean starts out making grandiose gestures, nearly giving Bobby a black eye over Sam's belated breakfast, but by the end of the day, he's given up, realizing--like Sam--that they don't really need them.

But Dean's still a talker by nature; he's not used to accommodating for people who can't hear. Neither is Bobby. Sam can piece together the gist of things via body language, if he really pays attention, but the actual words are beyond him for now. When Dean and Bobby forget he's there, it's hopeless. Sam has to interrupt them almost constantly to remind them to include him in the conversation. At least _he's_ not scribbling things on notepads the way Bobby and Dean have to. The way he writes these days....

His volume control is a little more questionable, since he can't hear himself. His automatic reaction to not hearing his own voice is to compensate by shouting. His only guide to moderation is how much Bobby and Dean flinch when he talks. 

They spend a lot of that first day trying to figure out a better system. Bobby finally digs out a stack of legal pads from somewhere in the desk and sets them out, stuffing one down into the side of his chair so he'll have it at hand. Dean looks at the things askance, but finally takes half the stack and heads upstairs. Every table and bookcase downstairs gets one. Bobby even finds a little one that Sam can keep in his pocket in case of emergencies.

Sam just stares at it, wondering if there's any point to communication when it's been reduced to this.

*******

Now that Dean's broken Sam's initial depression, and since they both know damn well he's not going to let Sam do it again, things go back to--

Well, they've never been normal. They've never _had_ a status quo. So Sam doesn't know what exactly it _is_ that they're back to, only that the silence is suffocating. Missing smell and taste still aren't really obvious except at meals. Missing touch is still kinda weird, but unless he's actively trying to do something, even it seems pretty mild, an amplified version of having a foot or hand go to sleep. The lack of sound, though.... He feels like he's been set adrift, like almost all the _real_ connections to the world have been cut. Sight is all that he has, and he's thankful that he still has it, but he feels separated from the rest of the world now, everything at one remove, nothing quite real.

 _Derealization_ , Wiki helpfully supplies.

He gave up researching his conditions after his temperature sense died and it became difficult for his fingers to manage the keyboard, but Bobby's desk (which is either the back way to Narnia or a well-disguised office supply store) supplied a wireless mouse, so Sam's able to do some web surfing to stave off a little of the boredom while Dean and Bobby are making a run to town for groceries and to pick up a delivery of books that Bobby's postman claims he can't lift. Nothing serious, but he needs a break from the Apocalypse, even if only for a few minutes. A brief look at aids for the deaf reveals nothing that's going to help him once his sight goes, and everything he finds to help the deaf and blind works on the assumption that the patient still has their other senses. _Especially_ touch.

He finally closes the laptop, leans back, and on a whim, closes his eyes.

Dark, silent, numb. This is his future. This is what--

"Hello, Sam."

Sam jumps out of the chair with a yell--his reflexes haven't quite resigned themselves to being stuck in a permanently numbed body. Once it would have been threatening, but now he only manages to knock over the chair and not feel the bruise he's bound to get. Cas is standing behind him, looking bewildered. "I _heard_ \--"

"No. I spoke several times and you did not respond, so I tried--another method. You are not actually _hearing_ me."

Cas is somehow projecting Jimmy's voice directly into Sam's head, bypassing Sam's malfunctioning ears entirely. Not his true voice, of course, that would probably crack Sam's skull, assuming it didn't immediately reduce Sam's brain to mush. Some kind of angel-vessel telepathy, maybe.

"You are deaf now, I presume."

"Figure that out all by yourself?" Sam snaps, reaching to right the chair, but Cas beats him to it, and Sam immediately feels like an ass. "Yes. I am. A few days ago."

Cas only nods. "I thought that might be the case. Dean's voice mail message was not very coherent." Sam gives him a look. "There was much profanity and considerable use of your name. There was also static, so I was not entirely certain that he was saying 'deaf' and not 'dead,' but I assumed that if you had died, there would have been much more of an uproar and from parties other than Dean."

"Thanks. I think." A thought occurs to him. "Cas, this thing you're doing-- Is there any way you could make it so Dean could do it? Talk to me, I mean? It would be--"

"No. It would exhaust my grace entirely." 

Naturally. "Something's better than nothing, I guess," Sam says. 

When Dean and Bobby get home and Dean finds out that Cas can make Sam hear him but can't make Sam hear anybody else, he has a completely different opinion, one that is demonstrated with a barrage of shouting and temper that Bobby has to end with the shotgun.

For the first time, it occurs to Sam that there may actually be some blessings in being deaf.

*******

Being able to hear Cas helps a little, but not as much as it probably should. Cas is still wandering in and out, looking for God, and he really _needs_ to keep moving, because he's not hidden from Heaven as well as they are. He drops by at least once a day now, though, in case something needs to be said that's more involved than notepads and their makeshift sign language can adequately manage.

The rest of the time--

For the three weeks since his hearing died, Dean has insisted that Sam stay downstairs most of the day. Sam's not sure if this is because Dean thinks he's more likely to summon Lucifer now that he only has one sense left to lose, or if Dean thinks he can hold off the blindness by sheer force of will, or if his initial bout of bedridden depression just scared the shit out of his brother. But Dean does his best to make sure Sam's entertained--kinda like he did when Sam was four and they'd been locked in the same motel for a week and there was nothing on TV, only now his efforts involve fewer Ninja Turtles. 

Today's efforts involved presenting Sam with a pile of paperbacks from a used bookstore. Sam hasn't asked if there was any exchange of money involved, because he does _not_ want to know. So Sam's pretending to read the first one that didn't look like a bodice-ripper while Dean's cleaning the guns. 

The guns get cleaned a lot nowadays. Sam knows the ritual of it relaxes Dean--some kids had teddy bears, Dean had guns and the Impala--so Sam doesn't bring it up.

Dean's head jerks up, and his lips move--talking to Bobby, undoubtedly, since he promptly heads for the kitchen, leaving the weapons scattered on the table.

Sam doesn't realize what he's doing until he actually reaches out and picks up one of the guns. His hands still work, even if he can't feel the metal. It'd take a little longer to get it loaded, a little more care to aim, but it's an option.

Sam's never been suicidal. Even at his worst, those raw drunken days right after Dean died, he wasn't actually suicidal, just desperate.

He's not really suicidal now. But he _is_ desperate. Lucifer promised to bring him back if he killed himself. If he does, will this be fixed? When Dean was resurrected, all his old scars vanished. Demons apparently can't do that, if the scar on Sam's back is any indication, and the closest Sam's come to an angelic resurrection is when Zachariah removed his lungs and put them back--but he didn't actually _die_ then, since Zachariah was making a point.

There are hands on his shoulders and he's jerked around, the gun snatched out of his hands. Dean's leaning in way too close, undoubtedly shouting at him. 

"Lucifer won't let me stay dead. He said as much when I threatened to kill myself." There are certain advantages to not hearing. For instance, he can run right over any attempted interruptions. "If I died and he brought me back, it might fix me! The angels fixed everything when they resurrected you!"

Dean shouts something else. It's clear that he thinks this is one of the Worst Ideas Ever. Then, just to prove his point, he rummages on the table until he comes up with a pen and one of the legal pads, and scribbles something. He holds the tablet up. _Stupid._

"I love you too."

_F U._

"You wrote out 'stupid' and you can't be bothered to write out 'fuck'?" That gets him Dean's middle finger. "Dean. It's a possibility. You _know_ that." Dean flinches and makes the gesture that they've established means _turn it down_. Sam lowers his voice. "Can we at least ask Cas?"

Dean eyes him suspiciously, like he thinks it's a trick, but then he shouts. (Sam is getting very familiar with what a Dean shout looks like.) Cas steps out of the kitchen.

"How long--" Sam begins, but no, of course, that's why Dean suddenly went to the kitchen, it wasn't Bobby, it was _Cas_. "At some point, you're going to have to start telling me things, Dean!" Dean gives him an innocent look. "Like when Cas shows up and is eavesdropping on the argument!"

"I was not eavesdropping," Cas says, and he sounds insulted. "I was speaking to Bobby."

"Sure you were." Cas and Bobby having a conversation without Dean in the middle? Right. And Lucifer's just misunderstood.

Dean jumps in then, undoubtedly explaining what he sees as Sam's sudden self-destructive tendencies. Cas listens, and then says flatly, "No. It is too risky."

"How--"

"We cannot risk Heaven getting your soul. They want the Apocalypse as much as Lucifer. They will undoubtedly torture you until you consent. You don't have to be _in_ your body when you agree."

 _And I'm not being tortured now?_ It's times like this when Sam has to remind himself that Cas has no idea what it means to be human. No matter how weak he is, he still hasn't weakened to the point of mortality. Cas is limited in his vessel, but he's not _trapped_ in it. "I doubt I'll go to Heaven," Sam says instead. He set Lucifer loose on the world. He's pretty sure that guarantees him a prime spot in the Pit.

"Then Lucifer won't have to wait for the angels to give you to him," Cas replies. Sam blinks. For Cas, that was almost _snippy_. He is definitely spending too much time around Dean.

"Do you have any other ideas?" Sam demands. "You all think this is their way of making me say yes but none of you are trying to do anything to stop it! You're just sitting back and worrying what to do when it happens!"

He regrets the words as soon as he sees Dean's stricken expression. Sam expects him to explode, but the flare of temper comes, surprisingly, from Cas. "If that is what you believe, Sam," the angel says, "you were deaf long before you lost your hearing!"

With that, he vanishes from the room.

*******

Cas reappears two days later. Sam doesn't need to hear to recognize that Dean is shouting at him. "I went to find answers," Cas says when Dean finally stops yelling long enough to take a breath. "From my brethren."

Dean writes the comment down to make sure that Sam can read it. _That was one of your dumber ideas._

"We needed to know, Dean. And I was able to speak to Michael himself."

"You got in to see _Michael?_ " Sam asks. "Without Zachariah killing you?"

"I didn't go through Zachariah. I prayed to Michael directly. I may have--um--misrepresented my influence in making Dean say yes." Dean shoots Cas a glare that undoubtedly sets some of the angel's feathers afire, and Sam chuckles. "Regardless. He was as shocked as we are. What is happening to Sam is not part of the plan. At least, not so far as Michael is aware."

That doesn't mean the angels _aren't_ actually behind this, but considering how anal they are about orders and following them, it lowers the odds considerably.

Dean shouts something and storms out, and Cas looks confused, the way he so often does when it comes to Dean and his temper. Sam waves him toward Bobby's desk chair. The angel doesn't take him up on the offer. "I do not know why he insists on getting angry at me."

"He's not mad at you, Cas, he's just mad." He leans back until his head won't go any farther, undoubtedly adding another layer of bruise. "So this isn't the angels."

"I do not think Michael would lie to me," Cas says, "and I do not believe Zachariah would dare this much on his own."

"Plus they'd have to be able to find me."

"Exactly."

If the angels could defeat the sigils carved in his and Dean's ribs, they wouldn't be wasting time doing this to him. They would've snatched Dean up for Michael, dropped Sam into Lucifer's lap. _Then_ the torture would start, with a clear goal of getting them-- _both_ of them--to say yes.

"And Lucifer wouldn't leave me guessing." Cas looks blankly at him. "If this was Lucifer, he'd be in my dreams every night, gloating about it. If this was some plan of his, he wouldn't just leave me alone to suffer, he'd let me know _why_ it was happening. He'd fucking _revel_ in it."

"That makes sense."

"So. It's not about getting us to say yes." That should be a relief, one less thing to worry about. It's not. "In that case," Sam says, trying to work it out in his head, "then-- Could it be that somebody else is trying to stop their showdown?" Cas tilts his head, eyes dark. " _Is_ there a way to damage a vessel so that an angel can't use it?"

Cas seldom lets surprise show, but this time, he does. "Not that I know of, but I am--not very knowledgeable in such things. It was not part of my duties." He stops, clearly thinking things over. "If it _is_ possible, then that would explain why this is only happening to you, and not also to Dean. It requires _both_ vessels for Michael to battle Lucifer, but doing this must require immense power, and you are the _only_ possible permanent vessel for Lucifer. Michael has--options." He stares off into space for a moment. Before Sam can ask, he goes on, "I will have to look into this. However...." Sam just raises an eyebrow. "I do not know that anyone but God could do this. And after all this time of searching.... In all honesty, Sam, I am beginning to believe that he does not _want_ to be found."

Well, it would certainly be his style. Help from afar, and doing the most destructive thing possible to the humans, so long as he doesn't have to show up and tell his firstborn brats where to shove it.

Cas looks suddenly _very_ uncomfortable. "Sam, was I perhaps not meant to hear that?"

"What?"

"I believe you just referred to the heavenly host as God's 'firstborn brats.'"

Oh, _shit_. "Sorry, Cas. I can't always tell when I'm saying something out loud."

To his surprise, Cas almost smiles. "It's not like Dean hasn't called us much worse."

*******

Neither the angels nor Lucifer.

That leaves the field wide open. _Too_ wide. The possibilities are probably not endless, but just counting the humans, there are six billion possibilities who'd really like to live long enough to see Christmas. Most of them are safely oblivious to their impending doom, of course, but still.

That leaves a third party, with both the power to do this _and_ a vested interest in stopping the Apocalypse. The list starts with rogue angels, assuming there are any besides Cas, and fills up three sheets of college-ruled notebook paper after the first brainstorming session. Bobby has Dean haul up an old table from the basement to make Sam a desk in one corner, so he can sit there, safely out of the way of the living room traffic, with books of possibilities stacked next to him, leaving Bobby free to focus on the ending-the-Apocalypse research. Sam's damn near useless otherwise, but he _can_ still help with research.

He doesn't think anything of that stack at first, figuring it would take a day, two at most. He's always been a fast reader.

Now, though, his body slows him down. Oh, his eyes are quick enough, skimming over antique fonts and funky spellings as if it's second nature, but he can't feel the paper against his fingers, can't feel the edges of the pages, so it takes both hands to turn the pages, to make sure he's only turning one and not skipping. The Band-Aids wrapped around each finger are insulation against more paper cuts, a measure he had to institute after the third time he realized that he was bleeding all over Bobby's precious rare volumes. Blood on occult tomes? _Never_ a good idea.

Nothing excuses the damn Hello Kitty Band-Aids, though. _Dean._

There's nothing to disturb his concentration now. Absolutely no distractions, unless and until Dean decides it's time for a break and comes over and waves his fingers in Sam's face to get his attention. No other voices exclaiming over what they've found. No sounds of customers scrounging for parts or someone tinkering with an engine outside. No absent humming of Metallica or Zeppelin over the little clicks of gun-cleaning or the rattle of rock salt as shells are reloaded. Not even a view, since Sam's desk is pretty much parked half in the fireplace.

The only thing that can distract Sam--well, the only thing that isn't arranged by Dean--is hunger or thirst. Thirst is easy enough to take care of, even if Sam _is_ being forced to drink from an oversized sippy cup. Oh, the place Dean bought it had another name for it, something more dignified, but the fact remains that it's an adult-sized plastic mug with a lid and handles on both sides, weighted on the bottom to minimize spills, meant for adults with problems gripping or swallowing. Parkinson's, MS, Alzheimer's.

There are days Sam envies those people. At least they know what's causing their problems. 

Sam sets another book onto the ever-growing discard pile. Hunger makes him get to his feet and carefully thread his way through Bobby's clutter of books and scrolls and artifacts to the kitchen. Dean's tried to neaten the place up, but that's like trying to repair a roof in a hurricane, especially since _no one_ understands Bobby's so-called filing system. Cas had suggested a cane, but that just makes things worse; Sam can't feel the cane in his hand, so it's only more trouble, like he's trying to keep three feet from tangling instead of just two. 

He's actually under explicit orders to stay out of the kitchen unsupervised, but he's not going to touch the stove or pick up a knife. He just wants a snack, and it's not like Dean hasn't been stockpiling one shelf in the fridge with things Sam can manage. Sam really wishes he'd been able manage his phone enough to get a picture, because it may have been the only time anybody's going to see Dean Winchester chopping veggies that aren't also spell components.

Sam's very careful, making sure that both hands are firmly under the Tupperware containers before he lifts them out, double-checking that they're solidly on the counter, not on the edge, before he lets go. The lids are trickier, but it's Tupperware, not safecracking. There's a stack of paper plates waiting, the thick expensive kind that won't buckle if not supported properly--also bought while Dean was rummaging through Sioux Falls on his quest for assistive items and finger foods and embarrassing slippers. 

Sam knows Dean expected an argument when he came back from the grocery store with cheese cubes, chicken nuggets, and pizza rolls, or at least a plea for something healthy. Sam hadn't bothered. It was Bobby who had sent Dean back for the veggies.

Cheese cubes and cherry tomatoes don't require cooking--another thing he's forbidden to do, even with the microwave, ever since he gave himself another second-degree burn on a Hot Pocket--but it's something to ease the hunger. He can't do much for the _craving_ \--that would require the ability to taste--but at least the hunger's an easy fix. His stomach doesn't care if he tasted the food or not.

He puts the snack containers back into the fridge with just as much care as he used getting them, and--using entirely too much focus--picks up a cheese cube. He has to watch his hand until he's cross-eyed in order to get it into his mouth without poking himself in the eye or nose or ear, but once it's in, he takes a second to relax and chew, and glances out the window, with its current view of the Dean slaving over the Impala until she gleams and--

Cas is here. He can't remember if Cas was expected. If Dean thought he had a lead, though, he wouldn't tell Sam, not until he was certain of it. He's in full protector mode these days. He's not about to raise Sam's hopes until he's dead sure they're not going to come crashing down again.

Dean steps around the car. Cas speaks, and Dean just sort of crumples in on himself, that way he has, without really moving. He takes a step back, leans against the Impala, and Sam can't be certain at this distance, but he thinks Dean might be on the verge of tears. Maybe more than the verge. Cas sort of looks like he wants to give Dean a hug.

And then he understands. Cas has found something out, something bad, and he's telling Dean out there, where Sam's not, so that they can figure out the best way to break it to him. So that Dean can be all brave and gung-ho about it, the way he was when he gave Bobby that "GED and give-'em-hell attitude" speech. 

He wonders how many other breakdowns he's missed. Now that Sam can't hear, Dean could have a meltdown every five minutes, and as long as he's out of Sam's line of sight, Sam would never know. And the hours after Sam goes upstairs, when Dean's left down here with just Bobby and research and the stash....

He wonders, for the first time in weeks, how much Dean is drinking. Dean stays up later than he does, and only comes upstairs long enough to sleep or set the temperature on the shower for Sam. And _Bobby's_ sure as hell not going to tell Dean to lay off the whiskey, not as long as it's not causing problems. Bobby's many things, but a hypocrite isn't one of them.

God, he really is a selfish bastard. Since his hearing died, he's been so focused on his own misery that he hasn't once stopped to think how _Dean's_ handling this. He knows--dear _God_ , how he knows--that Dean can be infuriated at him and still be in full-on caretaker mode, and the frustration at not being able to fix Sam, at not being able to _talk_.... How close has Dean gotten to making another deal? Or offering to say yes to Michael, if it meant fixing Sam? All while presenting this--this _façade_ to Sam, hovering like a worried parent whose kid's got his first cold, buying tacky slippers and Band-Aids and finger foods to keep Sam smiling and annoyed? The man tried to clean _Bobby Singer's_ living room, for fuck's sake, a task that would defeat the combined forces of Hercules and Martha Stewart.

No wonder it looks like he's ready to cry on Cas's shoulder.

*******

When Dean and Cas finally come in, Sam's back in the corner, though not facing into it; Bobby's at his desk and it's rude to just ignore him. Besides, getting his numb fingers on runaway tomatoes without leaving a trail of seeds and juice on his notes--or the books--requires all kinds of concentration. Making it look like that's _all_ he's been doing takes more. If Dean thinks for one second that Sam saw his little breakdown outside....

Dean goes straight for the notepad and starts writing--and writing and writing. "Jesus, Dean, are you a novelist now?"

Dean waves at him, telling him to be patient, and then Cas steps in. "I can make Sam hear me, Dean, let me explain." 

For a second, Sam thinks Dean might actually argue, which makes him wonder how bad this news is. But then Dean relents--for the definition of _relent_ that means _gets up, gestures for Cas to take the floor, digs out a bottle of bourbon, and takes a swig_.

Cas looks faintly annoyed--more than usual, anyway--but he slogs on. "I have found a prophecy. A very old prophecy, from a source that is not Heaven." Sam raises an eyebrow at that. "Several old copies of Revelation have had it inserted."

"How do you know it's not from--"

Cas's irritation deepens. "I _am_ familiar with the source material," he points out. "All the versions you have are variants of the original. And this prophecy-- It is not in the original, and it is not a logical mistranslation, like most of the others. It speaks of the vessels."

Bobby holds up his legal pad. _Transcription error._

That would be the simplest explanation. When you copy something by hand, mistakes happen. It would have made the copies less valuable, except as quirks, since any comparison with an "acceptable" copy of Revelation would have shown the mistake.

"No. This looks as if it were intentional. Most of them are Scandinavian, but I do not know if that's important or not."

Sam glances at Bobby, who only shrugs. The only thing that he can think of is that paganism held on longer in Scandinavia than it did in most of the rest of Europe, but why would pagans be altering copies of the Bible? 

"The prophecy states, 'The brothers of Heaven must not be allowed to destroy our world. When a woman steals the senses from a vessel, it cannot be used and they must wait forty generations before trying again.'"

As prophecies go, it's kinda precise. Sam says as much.

 _Or the monk doing copywork that day was drunk as a skunk,_ Bobby writes, _and the rest are just copies of his copy._

Also not impossible. Medieval monks were just as prone to stupid mistakes--and pranks--as any bored modern cubicle worker. 

"It is _not_ a mistake," Cas growls. "It was inserted at the same time by different copyists in different monasteries of different orders all across northern Europe. Given the communications of the time, there is no method by which so many could have coordinated their efforts."

"Not unless somebody was helping things along," Sam finishes. "But I think I'd notice a woman stealing my senses. I haven't even--" He stops and thinks. "Shit, I think the last time I even _talked_ to a woman was Jo, and that's been at least three weeks. Right after we got here."

Dean writes something down. _Pink lady with engine problem._

"I didn't _talk_ to her," Sam protests. "She just glared at me when I took the receipt book out. No conversation. No physical contact, and a spell like this would probably require that."

Bobby says something that makes Dean shout. Sam looks at him, curious, and he holds up _Women? Dean easier target._ Sam grins, and when Dean turns a glare on him, Sam just says, "Truth hurt?" Dean's only answer is a certain universal gesture, and Sam chuckles. Then something occurs to him. "Only delayed? Not stopped?"

That nets him two shrugs and Dean putting down his drink long enough to scribble _You expected something useful?_

Actually, yes. This much torture should be worth more than a _delay_.

Not that forty generations is anything to sniff at. A generation is twenty years, give or take--forty, if you apply the usual Biblical numerology. That's somewhere between eight hundred and sixteen hundred years. A lot can happen in a millennium. God might even decide to return from vacation. "I don't understand," he says. "Why would it make a difference? Wouldn't Lucifer still be able to hear even if I can't?"

It's Cas who answers. "If it were a normal injury, yes. But what has been done to you is not normal." Dean says something. "It's not normal because I _cannot sense the problem_ , Dean. What I cannot sense, I cannot repair. No angel can."

"Even an archangel?"

"Probably _any_ angel. There is every chance that even Lucifer would be...limited...if he tried to use you now."

"But that's not how it works! Not with demons or angels. Even demons can see if they're in a blind person."

"I _know_. The physical abilities of the vessel _shouldn't_ matter." Cas makes a helpless not-quite-shrug. "As I said, these are not precisely normal injuries. I think your initial assessment was correct, and something is _ensuring_ that even an angel can't overcome your new...disabilities."

"But you can't be sure."

Cas shakes his head. "Not for certain. Not without an angel actually trying to take you as a vessel."

He trusts Cas, but--even assuming Cas _could_ inhabit a Winchester--he's not willing to try it. One possession in a lifetime is his limit. "So. Say this actually works and Lucifer _can't_ use me and that's what postpones Armageddon. Isn't that what we've been looking for?"

Dean says something, fairly spitting through his bourbon. Bobby makes a disgusted face.

"Dean wishes me to tell you that the downside, as he puts it, is that Lucifer remains free."

But without his true vessel.... "How much damage can he do? Without me, I mean?"

"He can still do quite a bit, but the vessel he currently inhabits cannot last much longer, no matter how many demons he bleeds. When it fails, he will be forced to seek another."

Dean makes a couple of loopy gestures with one hand, probably indicating "And another and another."

"Undoubtedly," Cas says, verifying the suspicion, "but without Sam, there is no battle with Michael. That is the only reason Lucifer seeks a vessel at all. Rather than stay here, being forced to interact with the humanity he hates so much, he would likely retreat to Hell and turn his attention to manipulating the bloodlines for the creation of a new true vessel. And that would take more than Dean's lifetime, so Heaven would then have to create their own new vessel for Michael. Unless one of you has left children somewhere--" Every eye in the room turns to Dean, whose face screws into a _what the fuck?_ expression so bewildered that Sam almost laughs. "--it could take generations to manipulate the bloodlines to that end." 

Retreat to Hell. It's not the Cage, and Lucifer will undoubtedly have schemes to wreak on Earth via demons and monsters, but it's not the Apocalypse, either. More time for humanity to figure something else out. More time for God to get back from his walkabout.

Dean is yelling. Cas translates emotionlessly, "Dean wishes me to tell you that Lucifer is, like all angels, a dick, and that just because he is not on the planet is no reason to assume that he will not continue to work toward its destruction. And that once the angels and demons determine what has happened, there may be retribution." 

The perfectly neutral delivery of that line, along with the language that Dean would _never_ use, makes it hard not to laugh. "Mankind's been surviving demons for thousands of years," Sam points out instead. "I'm not--"

More yelling, but this time, Sam manages to read enough of Dean's lips. "Tell him the rest, Cas!"

"If that _is_ the reason this has been done, if you decide to accept this as the price of stopping Lucifer-- Sam, there can be no healing you. Ever. Not even at the hand of God."

Because to heal Lucifer's vessel would be to open the door to Armageddon again.


	5. Anopia

It can't be fixed. Whoever is doing this, whoever wrote that prophecy, whoever is _fulfilling_ that prophecy, it's plain: Short of divine intervention, this will _never_ be fixed. Sam's going to be stuck like this until his sight goes, and then....

Just what he needs. _More_ nightmares.

Sam comes downstairs, stumbles on the rug at the bottom--it must be stapled to the floor, otherwise Dean would have gotten rid of it by now--and steps into the living room. Nobody's there. "Dean?" Sam says into the empty room, and Dean steps out of the kitchen, into Sam's line of sight. His mouth moves. By his expression, Sam thinks he's asking a question. Sam ignores it. "Can we--um--talk?"

Dean frowns, since that's not exactly something they usually say to each other. But he shakes it off quickly enough and comes over, sitting down at Bobby's desk and pulling out a marker and one of the ever-present legal pads. 

Sam eases himself into the chair at the corner desk. "When I go blind--"

Dean immediately starts talking. Sam recognizes his expression, even if the words are too quick for him to catch. It's _not no but hell no_ combined with _don't be ridiculous, Sammy_. He should have known. Dean never has been good at facing this kind of thing.

"Dean!" Dean quits talking. "Just--think about what it's going to be like for me, okay?"

Scribble. _Be fine._

"No, I won't." He'll be trapped in darkness, in silence, unable to even feel the world around him; it'll be him stuck inside his head, and that'll be all. What good is the ability to move if he can't see where he's going, can't feel if he's hit something? He's more likely to poke himself in the eye with a fork than actually manage to get food in his mouth, and that's _now_ , when he can still see what he's doing. 

If he could still touch, none of this would matter. The sense they forgot is the one that would enable him to actually have a life. Look what Helen Keller accomplished, and she _started out_ not being able to hear or see. 

But his skin is dead; he can only manage as much as he does because he _can_ still see, because he can watch where his feet and hands go, because he only wears sweats and T-shirts and no longer attempts anything that has to be fastened, be it buttons or zippers or laces. Without his vision--

Without his vision, he won't even be able to take care of himself, and there will be Dean, stuck with a helpless, hopeless invalid of a brother, with the very real possibility that the angels and demons will take the delay in Armageddon out on both of them. The two of them have a hard enough time handling Bobby, and Bobby's only problem is that he can't walk.

Not to mention, long-term sensory deprivation is considered a form of torture for a reason. Once his sight goes, his sanity will eventually follow. Being able to hear Cas may hold it off for awhile, but it'll still happen.

Dean holds up the notepad. _I will find a way, Sammy. I WILL FIX THIS._

He took the trouble to write out both whole sentences, punctuation and all. Sam knows it means that Dean is utterly serious about his promise, the way he was when he promised to save Sam so long ago, but what comes out is "The way you fixed it at Cold Oak?"

Scribble. _Trust me. Please._ "Please" is underlined five times.

"You shouldn't be stuck taking care of me!"

Dean's never looked so betrayed. And Sam's _shot_ him at least twice, not to mention the whole Ruby thing. "Sammy," he says, it's a word Sam has learned to lip-read _very_ well, but that's all he can get out.

"Dean, when I go blind-- I'm going to be helpless, don't you get that? People who are deaf and blind rely on being able to touch to communicate, to--to do _anything_. I'm going to be stuck in my own head for the rest of my life, unable to interact with _anybody_ at all. _Ever_. It'll be _worse_ than a coma, because I'll be fully aware that I'm in one." Dean's eyes go dark. "What are you going to do then, Dean? Make another deal? Keep me on Bobby's couch until I go crazy?"

Dean writes something. _Not kill._

"I'm not saying that." Dean looks confused. "I'm saying-- Don't spend the rest of your life trying to take care of me. I'm telling you--" He takes a deep breath. Asking Dean to kill him would be easier. He's done it before. And dying would be easier than what awaits him. "When it happens, I want you to stuff me in a nursing home or something and forget I'm there."

By the expression on Dean's face, he's wishing Sam _had_ insisted on being killed. Neither one of them truly fears death anymore. The threat of a long, lingering _decline_ , on the other hand.... He knows for certain it's something Dean fears--maybe not as much as he did before Hell, but it's still in the top ten. To grow old and decrepit and helpless....

Dean writes down something, and holds up the notepad again. _NO._ The lines are thick and bold and the letters take up the entire page.

"Dean--"

Dean waves the notepad again, this time shouting "No, Sammy!" He tears off a page, scribbles some more, and shoves it into Sam's hands.

_Not giving up. Not ever._

"That's the problem!" Sam shouts. Just once, he wants Dean to listen to reason, not to that overdeveloped sense of responsibility that their father planted in his head. "This time, _you need to give up!_ "

"Fuck you," Dean says, making sure to enunciate the words clearly enough for Sam to lip-read, and he stalks out of the room.

*******

Sam retreats to his desk and his list of possibilities: every woman he can remember interacting with since he and Dean started hunting together again. Ellen, Jo, Bobby's sheriff friend. Mostly victims, but those vampires and that werewolf, a couple of angels and demons in female vessels-- They ran into Meg at one point, but very briefly, and Sam is _certain_ she didn't touch him. Assorted law enforcement. Waitresses. A _lot_ of waitresses.

Does he count dead women, too? Half the zombies were women, plus there's been a couple of ghosts. The prophecy didn't specify _alive_.

It's an impossible list. Before he lost all feeling, before walking through a crowd became an exercise in patience and staying upright, he seldom paid attention to gender; he was looking for _threats_. There's absolutely no way to narrow this down.

Dean fixes dinner, even makes sure Sam has the special skid-proof plate and spill-proof cup and large-handled utensils he bought, but he doesn't even try to communicate, let alone eat at the table. He fixes a plate for Sam and stalks out of the kitchen, leaving Sam sitting there with Bobby. 

Sam can't hear the Impala's engine, but he can still see the black blur as it revs past the windows.

Bobby gives Sam a questioning look, but Sam's not in the mood to elaborate, just focuses on his own plate and the food he can't taste, and Bobby doesn't push.

*******

Sam opens his eyes, and it's dark. There was still some light outside when he went to bed, so he hadn't turned the lamp on--the switch is small and his fingers clumsy. But Dean should have turned it on when he came to bed. Dean wouldn't forget, not with his own rest and Sam's safety _both_ dependent on a light in the dark.

Maybe Dean never came to bed. After that fight, it wouldn't surprise Sam at all. Dean's probably still downstairs, or even out in the Impala, depending on whether or not he felt up to facing Bobby. And whether he was sober enough to manage the stairs.

Sam rolls over towards the lamp.

No lamp. No bed. No Dean. Not even the vague outlines of night-vision.

It's not dark.

He's blind.

Panic seizes him. He can feel the scream tearing out of his throat even though he can't hear it. He knows his body's moving--he can feel his numbed limbs hitting things hard enough that he actually registers the pain in his bones. The light's _gone_ , it's not coming back, and even though he expected this, knew it was coming, has dreaded it every day, there was nothing that could have prepared him for the utter blackness that surrounds him, bottomless and unfeeling as demon eyes. Nothing could have prepared him for this feeling of being suspended in nothingness, a mind stripped of its body. He thinks he might be flailing, but his sensations are so dulled that he can't be sure, he could just be imagining it, he could be _dead_ and in a silent black corner of Hell and he couldn't even tell--

There's suddenly two points of building pressure on his cheekbones (he has cheekbones), smaller matching points against the back of his skull--pressing hard, hard enough to bruise, hard enough to hurt, and it finally occurs to him what he's feeling: Dean's fingers against his face, trying to reach him, trying to calm him down. 

Dean's here. It's black and silent and numb, but he hasn't been abandoned to the darkness. Dean hasn't left him. Despite their fight yesterday, Dean's still here.

It's not much.

It's just enough.

Sam gulps air, the thin scentless air, feels his lungs expand, and gets hold of his panic. There's a stuffy feeling in his sinuses, near where Dean's fingers--his thumbs, probably--are pressing against his cheekbones, and Sam wonders if he's crying again. If there are tears, if Dean wipes them away, Sam won't feel it. 

What he does feel is pressure against the front of his skull--not the pinpoints of fingers now, but smoother, wider, more even. It takes him awhile to realize that it's Dean, pressing his forehead against Sam's. Trying to force as much contact as possible, trying to reassure him.

"Sam."

Relief floods him as the voice echoes inside his head, in the blackness. "Cas?" He's not sure he even says the word. He might just think it.

Either way, Cas hears. "You have to relax. You're tangled up in the sheets and we can't lift you when you're flailing like this. Relax so that Dean and I can get you loose."

But if he relaxes, Dean will let go, and if Dean lets go, there'll be nothing anchoring him, it'll just be him and the dark--

The bones of his shoulder suddenly register pressure and deep pain. Dean, squeezing, letting him know he's still there, that he hasn't left, that he won't--

"He promises, Sam, he'll stay with you. But we have to get you to where you are not doing yourself further harm first."

Sam nods--well, he has the intention of nodding, and there's a vague sense of movement that may or may not be connected to his inner ears, the part connected to balance, not hearing. He's not sure how to consciously relax, so he just orders his body to go limp. Even if part of him argues, hopefully, that will be enough.

It's an eternity before Dean's gripping his shoulder again, hard enough to hurt--but it's probably only a few minutes. Maybe only heartbeats. Sam can't feel his heartbeat. Why can't he feel his heartbeat? How is he going to know if his heart gives out? How will he even know if he's _dead?_ How can he even be certain he's not dead _now?_

"Sam." Cas's voice cuts through the darkness. "You _must_ remain calm."

"I--"

"Dean says not to try lying, he knows when you are panicking."

Panic. Hah. This is _so much more_ than mere panic. He has nothing, no _world_ , nothing but darkness and silence and numbness, occasionally cut by the voice of a dead man being worn by an angel. He could die and go to Hell and he wouldn't even know, it would just be another wasteland of blackness--

"I assure you, Sam, Hell is neither dark nor silent." 

Right. Cas saw Hell when he rescued Dean. 

"Dean wants you to stand up. Can you?"

Stand? Standing requires something to stand _on_. Standing requires gravity. He's--

With effort, Sam derails that train of thought. "I think I can, but I can't tell where anything is--"

He means his arms and legs, but Cas--and maybe Dean--misunderstand him as meaning the furniture. "Let us worry about that."

It's sort of like when he was possessed, except that the manipulation is external, not internal. Sam's ravaged position sense, the part that is apparently dependent on the inner ear, tells him when he's upright, but that's about all the information he gets. Once upright, he just stands, afraid to move, afraid to _try_ to move, until Dean-through-Cas persuades him to take that first step. He's terrified of falling, not just because it could kill him if he lands wrong, but because he's not sure Cas or Dean can get him back up. 

"We will not let you fall, Sam."

Sam wishes he could believe that. Wishes he could feel their hands guiding him. Wishes he could feel _anything_. If whoever is doing this would just give him back his sense of touch, give him back the ability to feel pain and temperature and vibration and pressure, he'd willingly let them keep the other four--

" _Sam_."

There's an edge in Cas's voice that he's never heard before, an edge that sounds kinda like the one in Dean's voice when he's annoyed and worried at the same time. Is Cas worried? Why would Cas be worried? Cas thinks he's an abomination, so it must be for Dean's benefit, it can't possibly be for his--

"Sam!" Cas's voice echoes painfully inside his skull, and whether he can feel it or not, Sam's pretty sure he flinches. Then, more softly, Cas says, "You're saying all these things out loud."

Oh, shit.

"And I no longer believe that, regardless."

That's undoubtedly just for Dean's benefit--Sam knows how his brother reacts even to perceived threats. But without Cas, he can't hear anything, there's nothing at all in the darkness, so he tries to get control of his panic so that he can focus on only speaking when he _intends_ to. The last thing he needs is to let them see just how panicked he is--

"Sam, we cannot do anything if you do not calm down."

" _I can't!_ " The words rip at his throat, and his sinuses go all stuffy again, so there must be tears accompanying the words. He knows it doesn't make sense to them, it can't possibly, but he's alone in darkness and silence without even enough of his senses to feel gravity, and if this isn't an excellent time to panic he doesn't know what is. He doesn't know how he can live like this. He doesn't know how _anybody_ can live like this.

Somewhere beneath the panic and disorientation, the trickle of information from his inner ear tells him that he's gone down, and there's a moment of pain deep in one hip that makes him think maybe he's hit the floor. Or it could be sensory deprivation already kicking in, making him imagine things, making him hallucinate the only way the black silence will let him.

Either way, he lets reflex take over, curls in on himself, and then there's a vague sense of being lifted, being upright again--sitting, not standing, and there's hard pressure on both arms and his back, like he's being squeezed--

Dean. Holding him, like he did in Sam's scrambled memories of those last few moments in Cold Oak.

He's tried so hard to cling to his dignity, to be strong, to pretend that this isn't affecting him beyond the physical, but he's lost in the silence and darkness and it saps what little strength he has left and he just _can't_ anymore. 

Sam lets his brother hold him and just _breaks_.

*******

Eventually, he cries himself out, and between the three of them, they manage to get him up and sitting safely on one of the beds. Dean and Cas stay with him, Cas relaying for Dean. (Going to the bathroom has certainly become more of an adventure; Bobby's upstairs bathroom is _not_ big enough for three grown men.) Dean keeps pushing food and drink into him; Sam can still recognize a straw when it's shoved into his mouth, and reflex takes care of the rest. Once or twice, according to Cas, Dean gets a little overzealous, but Sam can't feel the spills soaking through his shirt, or see the stains to care, or even tell that he still _has_ a shirt on, and what's the point? He can't see it and he certainly isn't going anywhere, not even to a chair, because he doesn't want Dean leaving him, but he can't tell if Dean's there if he's not crushing Sam's hand, and there's no place in the house that'll hold both of them except the bed or the couch downstairs, and he'd just as soon not have Bobby see him like this. Bad enough Cas and Dean are.

He thinks he nods off at one point--it's hard to tell when you're locked in your own head like this, unless you dream, and he doesn't, not this time. All he knows is that he's suddenly more aware of the darkness weighing down on him and nobody's crushing his hand. "Dean?"

There's no answer, no squeeze or punch in the arm or pressure against his leg, just the silence and the darkness and the nothingness, and he can't tell anything but which way is up and he's not certain about that. " _Dean!_ " The word tears at his throat, so he knows he's screamed it. Why did Dean leave? Did he go off and do something stupid, like say yes? Dean has absolutely _no_ sense when it comes to Sam, they _both_ know that-- " _DEAN!_ "

"Sam."

"Cas?" The panic dies down, just a bit. "Is--"

"He's downstairs. You were asleep and he needed to eat. He's on--" Pressure on his hand, so hard that one of the bones cries out in protest and Sam wonders if it's cracked. "He's here now," Cas says uselessly. There's a moment of quiet in Sam's head, and Cas says, "Dean wishes me to tell you that I am an utter failure when it comes to taking care of you properly." Sam can imagine the confused look on Cas' face. "Also, there is something about my ancestry, but I cannot quite follow the lineage. It seems to involve a baboon and a horse's ass. That is not biologically feasible, Dean."

Sam has to laugh at that, it's just so _Dean_. He can't help but wonder if Cas relayed it just for that purpose, if perhaps he knew what Sam's reaction would be, if he knew that it would calm him down.

"Dean also wants me to tell you that you are wearing them."

He probably frowns. He can't really tell. "Wearing what?"

"The slippers."

"The-- _Dean!_ " Dammit, he should have thrown those things out when he had the chance.

There's another moment of quiet, and then Cas says, almost sheepishly, "Dean says Jo thinks they look very nice."

" _DEAN!_ You did _not_ send pictures of--"

"He did. Also to Ellen, Bobby, and I believe to me, though my minutes were too low to check." There's a pause. "I know that rabbits are emblematic of fertility, but I am not sure what that has to do with one's footwear, or the significance of the color--"

"The significance is that Dean's an ass!" He thinks he shouts that last part. It earns him a sharp deep pain in his upper arm--most likely Dean giving him a friendly punch.

"Ah," Cas says, as if that explains everything, and Sam belatedly realizes that it probably does.

*******

The day lasts forever, and all he can think about is an eternity of days like this, to be followed by Hell, because where else will the man who set Lucifer free go? He'd almost rather be in Hell now. At least there would be sound and light and sensation.

If Lucifer showed up now.... He'd say yes. Just for the chance that this could be fixed. 

"You must not despair, Sam."

Right. Despair is a mortal sin. Never mind that he's stuck inside his own head for--what? He's twenty-six years old. He could easily live another sixty years like this. Longer.

"Sam." Cas' voice cuts through the silence. "Dean wants me to tell you that he has you and that everything will be fine." There's puzzlement in the angel's voice, like he doesn't quite understand.

Sam does, though, because he's heard it all his life. He knows what Dean's said that Cas has translated so literally. _I gotcha, Sammy, it'll be okay._ Dean's voice is as clear in his head as if he actually can hear it, and he relaxes automatically, a reaction born of a lifetime of hearing those words. 

Someone still has a good grip on his hand; he assumes it's Dean. He squeezes back, a silent acknowledgement, and can only hope he's not crushing Dean's hand the way Dean's crushing his. Dean can still feel pain.

There's a faint sense of movement that might be the mattress sinking under somebody else's weight. "Dean says he will stay here with you."

Like that was ever in question. Sam's more concerned that there's not room for both of them on this bed. What if they fall off?

"This is the room Bobby used to use, before he was injured." Before Sam can argue that he went to sleep in their room, Cas adds, "We brought you here after the last bathroom trip, rather than returning to your room. Dean thought you wouldn't want him to leave, and the beds in the other room are too narrow."

Oh. Makes sense. It doesn't say much for his sense of direction, but that's probably as reliant on sensory cues as everything else. He is now _officially_ useless. 

It occurs to him suddenly that if Dean and Cas are here, with _him_ , nobody's working on fixing things. Bobby can only do so much. "There's no reason for you two to stay--" Sam begins, only to have the words halted by a sudden bloom of pain in his upper arm. Dean hits hard when he thinks Sam's being stupid. Especially now.

"Dean says, and I quote, 'Shut up, bitch.'"

Sam has to smile at that. "Jerk."

He has a flash of something, almost but not quite a vision--himself, pale, exhausted, eyes reddened, feet in those damned slippers, curled up against Dean like he's a kid again, clutching Dean's hand for all he's worth, and Dean with his other arm around him, his free hand bruised. He knows an instant later it's what Cas is looking at, that somehow Cas can project sight as well as voice into Sam's head, though it's only what _he_ sees and pretty useless for anybody else. It gives him an anchor, though, a better sense of what's going on outside his head.

"Dean wants me to sit on the other side of you," Cas asks, his voice awkward and formal. "May I?"

Sam manages not to laugh. What's he going to do to keep Cas away? Glare in his general direction? Throw a punch with an arm that won't even feel it if it connects? "The more, the merrier."

This time, he's almost certain that he feels the mattress sinking as Cas sits down on the other side of him. A hand grips his forearm, just enough that he can feel it. He shouldn't find it so reassuring, but he does.

He doesn't know how long this will last, these few moments of being anchored in the silent, numb darkness, but he'll hold on to it as long as he can.

*******

This time, Sam knows he's asleep, because it's blatantly obvious that he's dreaming.

The air is warm, the sky is bright, the grass is soft beneath his feet, and there's a mingled scent of commercial coconut and vanilla that always makes his eyes sting, because it's the smell he associates with Jess. There are trees in the distance on one side, water to the other, but _here_ is a huge lawn of grass so vividly green that it can't possibly be natural. And he's wearing the clothes that used to be _normal_ , before he couldn't manage buttons and zippers--jeans and tee and flannel. 

A woman's voice speaks behind him. "Hello, Sam."

It's not Jess. He knows that even before he turns around and sees her. Part of him is disappointed anyway, the deeply-buried spark that's all that's left of the kid from Stanford, the kid who still clings to a desperate hope of Heaven.

She's older, maybe Ellen's age, and despite the serene blue gaze and odd long robes, there's some of the same fierceness about her that he associates with Ellen. _Maternal_ , his brain finally supplies, but not the insipid sweetness celebrated in Mother's Day cards. This is more like a mama bear.

There's one other place he's felt that: In their old house, watching the spirit of his mother issue an order to a poltergeist.

"You're the one who did this to me," he says, and the words come out flat. He's not even sure how he knows it. She's a stranger, not familiar at all. She's definitely _not_ an angel; he has yet to meet the angel who could reliably fake _maternal_. Neither does she have the feel of a demon. "You're the one who wrote that prophecy."

"One of them, yes," she says simply. As if he doesn't deserve an explanation. As if he doesn't deserve _anything_.

"Why?" he asks. "What did I--"

"You did nothing." She waves her hand, and two stone benches appear. She takes a seat on one, as regally as any queen, and gestures for him to do the same. Sam obeys warily. "The Lord of Angels--"

"Who?"

"He has many names and none. You refer to him as 'God,' as if he were the only one." Sam stares at her, willing his jaw not to drop. "He has vanished from this world, leaving the angels unguided. If he will not come back to discipline them...." She shrugs. "It is our world as much as it is his, and they cannot be allowed to destroy it in a tantrum over who their father loved best."

And Sam thought his life was complicated when the _angels_ got involved. "So instead of letting them destroy the world, you're destroying _me?_ "

"You are hardly destroyed."

"I can't _do_ anything!" he shouts. "What the hell do you call it?"

"Injury," she replies, unruffled, and damn her, but technically, she's right. "The plans of the angels hinge on the vessels they created. If the Lord of Angels returns, he will be able to heal you. That is all the hope we can offer you. You understand that we could not leave it so that his children could work the healing."

No, of course not. If Lucifer could fix him, the whole thing would be pointless. "You couldn't stop me from letting Lucifer loose in the first place?" Sam demands. "None of this would have mattered if you'd--"

"Sam." It's soft, gentle, caring--that maternal thing again, like he's going to be convinced she cares, now that he knows she's behind this. She reaches over and taps his chest. When he looks down, he sees a glowing golden mark over his heart, gleaming through his shirt. A cross. "You were not born to one of us. You were born to the faith of the Lord of Angels, and that is what has shaped your destiny. We could only have interfered if you chose to come to our altars--and because of who you are, who the angels made you to be, we could have only done it _before_ the first seal was broken. Now-- This is all we can do to save the world for _our_ children. None of us wished to harm you, and I wish it were not so painful for you, but it was the only way left to us." She sighs, looks out over the expanse of green. "We created this place so that you might have a sanctuary, when all was done. A respite. A place where you could have what you had lost, even if only for a short while."

Sam stares at her, bewildered. "You made me a _park_."

"It is whatever you wish it to be." She waves a hand, and they're in a blazing autumn forest, complete with a pissed-off squirrel chattering at them from a branch; another wave, and they're on a wide white beach, the tang of the ocean air bringing back a surge of memories of that spring break with Jess. The woman waves again, and they're back to where they started, on the lawn.

There's still a major flaw in her magic trick. "Alone."

"Not entirely. Those who died in the keeping of the Lord of Angels are beyond our reach, but there are still many who dwell in our halls, and some of us will always be here."

 _In the keeping of the Lord of Angels_. In other words, Heaven; Christians, maybe even Jews and Muslims, depending on whether the woman's "Lord of Angels" actually refers to their shared deity rather than being used in a specifically Christian sense. It doesn't surprise him that there are other afterlives out there, that makes as much sense as anything else he's ever dealt with, but he doesn't know anybody who would have gone to those. He knew a handful of Buddhists and Hindus and Neopagans at Stanford, real ones, not dabblers, but as far as he knows, they're all still alive. 

Which brings him back to this sanctuary being a lonely one. Mom had believed in angels, Jess was an Episcopalian, and Dad grew up in a place and time where nothing but Christianity was tolerated. Even most of the hunters he's known were at least nominally Christian; the _only_ possible exception he can think of is Ash, but if Ash isn't in Heaven or Hell, if he's in these other "halls," the woman probably would have brought him here already, to make Sam's introduction to this so-called sanctuary easier. "You couldn't just kill me?" he asks bitterly.

"If we had, Lucifer or the angels would simply have resurrected you," she says mildly. "He promised you as much."

True enough, although how she knows that.... "And now?"

"Your soul is still in the keeping of the Lord of Angels." He stares at her. He's a demon-blood addict who set Lucifer on the world and kick-started the Apocalypse, and she thinks that _God_ still claims him? "We would not change that if we could; that must ever be your choice. But your body-- That we will defend from the schemes of his children." There's a glint in her eyes that he doesn't like. "You are going to live a long, natural life, Sam Winchester. No angel, demon, or monster will ever touch you again."

Ice runs down his spine, a sensation he hasn't felt in ages. A long, natural life...trapped in the cage of his own body, no senses, no way to interact. He's barely made it through a _day_ , and he wouldn't have managed that much without the constant attention of Dean _and_ Cas. A long, natural, _living hell_ , the only respite this--this glorified djinn dream. He won't even be able to commit suicide to end his suffering. 

Sam jumps to his feet, unable to remain sitting. He looks out over the too-green grass, at the blue haze of the lake. He's never going to see a real lake again, real grass, real sky. A sanctuary, she calls it. How long will it be before he gives up on trying to interact with the real world and retreats into this place, letting his body go on without him? What will that do to him out in the real world?

What will that do to _Dean?_ He never got Dean to promise to abandon him to a nursing home. Dean's going to try to take care of him all by himself, with a cranky cripple and a half-fallen angel as sidekicks, and if there's anything besides Hell that can break his brother....

No. There has to be something he can do. "You keep saying _we_ ," he says, grabbing at the first question that floats into his head. "I don't see anybody here but us."

"I thought it would be easier for you at first. Taken together, we can be overwhelming. But the others are here, waiting."

"The others?"

A soft smile, and she stands and waves the benches into nonexistence. "Sisters," she calls.

That suddenly, they are not alone. They're surrounded by a hundred--thousand--more?--women, on all sides.

Sam looks around at them, at costumes from a thousand different cultures, at skin and hair and eyes every human shade and some that aren't. Most are alien. A few are familiar. There's not a single male among them. Every one reeks of power--more than any angel, even Lucifer.

These are not _women_. 

"The prophecy," he says slowly. "It was a bad translation, wasn't it? It didn't say 'woman,' it said 'female.'"

The first woman--the first _goddess_ \--smiles, as if pleased that he'd figured it out. "I had heard you were the smart one."

Cas had said it would take a god to truly cripple a vessel. Okay, so he'd said _God_ , but Cas is an angel, and the angels and demons they've dealt with have a peculiar blind spot about the non-Abrahamic religions.

Four of the nearest ones he recognizes on sight, and one he actually knows by name. "Hattie" is Hathor, straight off an Egyptian wall, in red linen and wearing her horned sun headdress. "Ami" wears a kimono, which probably means she's Japanese. By the looks of her clothes, the third, the former Goth with bells on her cheeks, is Aztec or Maya, but the only Aztec deity he knows by name is Quetzalcoatl, who clearly wouldn't qualify for _this_ gathering. There's a real skull hanging from her belt now instead of a silver one at her throat; likely the only reason she bothered with that choker back at the diner was to hide the gaping, bloodless gash through her neck. The black woman with the missing ear is there, too, still in pink, but now it's a dress and turban that makes him think of old _National Geographic_ spreads on Africa. Sam thinks inanely that it's a good thing he never actually offered her the bunny slippers.

And then he recognizes the pattern. Europe, the Americas, Africa, Asia, the Middle East.

These are all the goddesses of _every_ religion, in _all_ the world, even religions thought to be dead. There's no way he could _ever_ recognize all of them. He knows the Greeks and Romans because of an elementary school history teacher who thought it was an important part of understanding Western civilization, and some of the Egyptians from _Stargate_ and an art history class he barely remembers, and he recognizes the Hindus _as_ Hindus because of their multiple arms, but he doesn't know their names, and the rest, even the ones who look European-- The only times he's ever studied pagan deities have been for hunts. That barely scratched the surface of the world's religions.

"I'm sorry," he says, looking back at his--guide? hostess? The blonde hair and blue eyes might mean she's Germanic or Norse, but then again.... "I don't know you."

She smiles. "I am Frigg."

Frigg, wife of Odin, queen of Asgard. Or, as the stash of antique comics in Bobby's attic Anglicized it, _Frigga_ , since English speakers expect women's names to end in _a_. That pretty much sums up Sam's familiarity with Norse mythology, except for bloodthirsty scarecrows, and looking at the assemblage, he can't help but wonder if that wasn't actually a demon or some other monster using the trappings of the older religion to manipulate the people in that town, rather than an actual pagan deity. He can feel the power gathered here, and it's more than enough to swat down an archangel like a fly. The scarecrow, that Christmas couple--they didn't radiate this kind of power. The Trickster had, a little, which makes him suddenly wonder if they hadn't been dealing with Loki or Anansi. No wonder they couldn't kill him.

"Oh, he is none of ours," Frigg says, with an amused little smile. She says something quickly--in Norse, he thinks, but he can't be sure--and many of the goddesses vanish. A few wander off, farther into the park, but Frigg's four compatriots stay close. So do others--he recognizes Athena and Artemis in a group robed like Greek and Roman statues. There's a knot of Egyptians with Hathor, and still more in other clusters that he can't recognize. 

If he could still read, the first thing he'd do when he woke up would be to read up on world mythology. Can the park become a library? Would it have all the books in the world?

No. He's letting himself be distracted. "Why couldn't you take care of the angels yourselves? Why did you have to damage a vessel?"

It's Athena--or possibly she's Minerva, he's not sure how he'd tell them apart--who answers. "Angels belong only to him. We may not touch them unless they directly threaten us--our worshipers, our sacred spaces, or those mortals to whom we have granted protection."

"They're not the same? As your worshipers, I mean?"

"The mortal soul is free to worship--or not--as it wishes. Likewise, we are free to grant our protection to any mortal as we wish, whether we have a claim upon them or not." Athena has a cold smile, no warmth at all. "As we have with you."

Right. A lifetime in a prison made out of his own body, and nobody will even be able to kill him. "And this is all it takes to derail the Apocalypse."

"All?" Hathor asks. "Do you have any idea of the power it takes to eradicate a mortal's senses without killing him? And to do it so that an archangel cannot heal him? It has taken every goddess ever known to man to arrange this, Sam Winchester. Half the world's deities, focused exclusively on _you_."

"I didn't mean-- How do you know this will stop them? Michael still has his vessel."

Skull Lady replies, "And who is he going to fight? Lucifer, in that falling-apart shell he's using now?" True enough. The last time Lucifer had shown up in his nightmares, Nick's skin was blistering and peeling from the effort of trying to hold in that much power. "The firstborn is blinded by his own prophecies. If they do not both have their true vessels, there can be no battle."

"The world will end some day, Sam," Frigg says, "but it will not come at the hands of the angels, and it is not yours to stop."

But the world will have time. All the world. 

To save the world, he can accept this. He doesn't deserve any better. There's just one problem. "Dean--"

"The Michael Sword is no concern of ours. We have no plans to touch him."

"It's not that. It's-- Leaving me like this--" How does he explain it? How can he convince a group of _goddesses_ that Dean Winchester could very well turn into an actual threat? "He won't stop. He doesn't care about the Apocalypse right now. All he cares about is _fixing_ this. Fixing _me_. Some people would've learned their lesson when they went to _Hell_ , but not him." There are easily a dozen skeptical looks. "You give him the choice between fixing the world and fixing me, and he'll choose me, every time."

"Then he will fail." Athena's voice is cold.

But if he's not mistaken, there's sympathy in Frigg's eyes. In Hathor's, too. 

"Let me explain it to him," he pleads. "Just give me long enough to convince him, and then you can take it all away again." 

Frigg shakes her head. "I could temporarily restore your sight, but the other magics have been too long in place. The nature of this working-- Each step had to be made permanent before the next was begun." Sam glances at Hathor and the other three. Now he understands the timing of those encounters, always near the time he lost another sense. Cementing the magic. 

"You still have speech," Pink Lady says. "Tell your brother when you wake."

Have they paid _no_ attention? Dean's been right there through this whole thing, he _knows_ what's going on, he _knows_ the power that has to be involved, and he's _still_ convinced they can change it. If Sam ever had any belief that deities were infallible-- Well, that's not a mistake he'll be making again. "Talking's not enough! I need-- There's more to communication than _talking!_ " He needs to see and hear to know that Dean really understands. Relaying through Cas won't be enough, not for something as important as this. Cas can't _read_ Dean the way Sam can, and even if Cas senses a lie, he won't necessarily call Dean on it. And Dean _will_ lie, if he thinks doing so will protect Sam, without thinking twice. _Why won't they listen?_

And then it comes to him, the way to make them understand. Most pantheons take the form of _families_ , after all. "Some of you have little brothers, right? Or overprotective older ones?" The bond between brothers and sisters is different from that of brothers, but he's willing to bet that there are enough similarities for them to understand. Some of the goddesses nod, and there are scattered rueful smiles. Even Athena looks suddenly thoughtful. Sam turns to Frigg. "If you can't undo the magic on me, I understand, but bring him here. Long enough for me to explain. It-- It will be better in the long run, trust me."

"Perhaps," Frigg says thoughtfully. "But--in all honesty, Sam, reaching your brother may not be possible. This place, and you, are part of the prophecy. Your brother stands outside. And he belongs still to the Lord of Angels."

"But he doesn't _dis_ believe in pagan gods. We've had to deal with you guys before." Frigg raises an eloquent eyebrow. "Okay, maybe demigods, maybe just demons pretending, but still, they claimed to be pagan deities. He believes in you as much as he does God. The Lord of Angels, I mean. Maybe even more." Believes in them as _monsters_ , but that's still belief, and confronted with evidence-- Dean's all about the evidence, he's said as much more than once. He didn't believe in angels until Cas showed up, but once he had that evidence....

"Sam, you do not understand. The angels have protected him far more than they have you. The claims of the Lord of Angels are deeper. They _have_ to be, because he is meant for Michael. I do not know that _any_ of us has the power to challenge that."

"Sister." One of the Greeks--or Romans, they're fairly indistinguishable--steps out of the group, an absolutely breathtaking blonde whose draperies emphasize, rather than shroud, her curves. This has to be Aphrodite. No wonder Paris gave her the damn apple. Athena's not bad-looking--none of the Greek gods would be, with their obsession on perfection--but she never stood a _chance_. "I believe _I_ can reach the Michael Sword."

There's muttering through the group, and even Athena and Artemis are looking at Aphrodite like she's lost her mind. Hathor isn't, though--she's got a knowing little smile as she beckons one of the cat-headed women behind her forward. One of the other Europeans steps forward to join Aphrodite--another Nordic goddess, he thinks, and she has a little smirk as well. Likewise one of the Hindus, one carrying a parrot, of all things, on her shoulder. 

None of the goddesses are ugly--the worst are what Jess used to call "Hollywood ugly," not so much _ugly_ as _less pretty_ \--but the ones who join Aphrodite and then vanish are by far the most beautiful.

There's not much that's universal when it comes to human religion, other than religion itself, but from what he knows of the polytheistic faiths, it's not at all uncommon that beauty, love, and sex wind up in the purview of the same deity.

Of _course_ those are the ones with the best chance at reaching Dean. Whatever the other claims on them, by God and angels and demons, Aphrodite must consider Dean one of her most dedicated worshippers, whether he's ever officially acknowledged her or not. Heaven doesn't exactly have a department to cover that kind of thing.

It's hardly any time--it's forever--before Aphrodite and the others come walking back through the crowd. Dean's not with them, and Sam's heart sinks. Trying to make Dean understand in the real world is going to be _impossible_ \--

Aphrodite gives him a blinding smile and waves her hand, and Dean's standing there.

"What the--" He breaks off, looking around. "I wasn't even drinking," Sam hears him mutter.

"Dean. It's not a dream." Half the goddesses glare at him. "Not _exactly_ a dream," he clarifies.

"Sammy?" Dean jerks around, zeroes in on him. "Wait--you can _see_ me?"

"Here I can," Sam says, stressing the _here_ , hoping Dean gets the hint. "This-- These are the goddesses who made that prophecy Cas found."

" _Goddesses?_ " Dean looks around again. "What the hell is this place?"

"This is a--well--"

"This is a world for a man whose world has been taken away," Frigg finishes for him. 

Dean's eyes narrow. "Like a djinn dream," he spits.

She only shrugs. "Not much difference, except that we are not using it to feed. Sam's body will remain perfectly safe when he is here."

Dean automatically flexes his fingers, testing to see if being here feels less real than his actual body. It doesn't, of course. This place is frighteningly real--more real to Sam, at least, than the damaged wreck he left behind. "So you're the ones I have to kill."

"No, we are the ones you have to thank for stopping the angels' Apocalypse," Frigg corrects icily. "You are none of ours, Dean Winchester, and you would do well to remember that. You are only here because Sam wished to explain this to you."

"Lady, back off," Dean snarls, and Sam flinches. In the comics, at least, Frigg raised a whole passel of Viking gods, and anybody who handled Thor as a toddler will have no difficulty smacking down a recalcitrant Winchester. "We've taken out gods before."

"No, you have taken out starvelings and pretenders subsisting on scraps," Frigg retorts. "You cannot even find your own god. What makes you think you can destroy others?"

"He's not my--"

"You were born to him, just as Sam was." Light flickers through Dean's shirt--a glowing cross, like the one over Sam's own heart. "You were formed by faith in him, even if only by rejection of it. Your hatred binds you to him."

Dean looks down, scowling at the cross. "You're saying I belong to him because I hate him? That makes _no_ sense."

"Faith is like love. It is seldom sensible."

"Dean!" This is getting them nowhere. Frigg seems fairly even-tempered, but Sam knows perfectly well that his brother could drive a saint to murder, and he does _not_ want Dean to end up a wet spot on the grass. "I asked them to let you come here, so I could explain--"

"Explain what?"

"That you need to stop trying to fix this."

"You can't live like you are, Sammy." Dean's not even bothering to look at him. He's got Frigg in a staring contest, and God help them, the idiot thinks he can _win_. "They're going to fix you, or so help me, I will find Michael and say yes and make sure he--"

"Little boy," Skull Lady says, somewhere between _amused_ and _deadly_ , "Michael has no power against us. Michael cannot even _enter_ this space without our permission."

Dean glances at Sam, wanting verification; Sam only shrugs. "They swore nobody would threaten me again," he says. "I think that includes archangels."

"And what, you just lie there in bed the rest of your life? Lost in--in this figment of their imaginations?"

"I told you what to do." Dean opens his mouth, but Sam runs right over whatever he's going to say. "No. Not this time. I want that promise. I want you to find someplace that can take care of me out there, and you dump me there and you _forget about me_."

"I can't--"

"It's better than I deserve!" Sam shouts. "I set Lucifer free! Dammit, Dean, _let me make amends!_ "

"You're out of your mind, Sam." Just like that, as far as Dean's concerned, the matter is settled, and Sam wants to _strangle_ his brother. "You want to damage a vessel?" Dean says to Frigg. "Damage me. Let him go."

"It can't be undone!" 

"Yeah, that's what they always say."

"In this case, it is accurate. Only the blindness may still be reversed." Frigg glances at the other four, Hathor and Ami and Skull Lady and Pink Lady. Sam thinks maybe they're exchanging thoughts.

Another goddess steps forward. She's clearly an Egyptian, by her features and clothes, but she's not one Sam recognizes. Her dress is made of leopard skin, not linen, and there's a seven--petaled? leafed?--something decorating her heavy wig. "The prophecy states that that five senses must be taken from a vessel, sisters," she says. She sounds a little like a librarian. "There is nothing that says all five must come from the _same_ vessel."

Jesus Christ. 

A loophole. A fucking _loophole_.

"Crippling both would make it even less likely that the angels will find a way to repair the damage," Athena points out. Murmurs and whispers race through the crowd.

Sam glances at Frigg. She looks--unsettled. Unwilling to commit to it. "It is up to you, sisters, to give them the option," she says finally.

"No," Sam whispers. "Don't. Please."

She tilts her head, reminding him of Cas. "You would rather stay as you are?"

"I know what he'll do!"

"What am I going to do?" Dean asks. 

"Don't play stupid," Sam snaps. To Frigg, he says, "If you give him the chance to bargain, he _will_ , and I don't want that. I started this. Let me take the punishment for it."

"It is not a _punishment_ , Sam," Frigg replies, sounding exasperated, at the same time that Dean shouts, "Yeah, because you could have done all this without the fucking _first seal!_ "

"If I'd saved you, it wouldn't have broken! And he still wouldn't have gotten out if I hadn't broken the _last!_ "

" _Boys_." Frigg's voice has a soft thunder to it. "You will remain civil."

"He's not doing it." For months now, he's watched Dean struggle to sleep in the dark. He's not condemning his brother to _eternal_ darkness just to spare himself. Not after everything Dean's done for him. 

"It's not your decision, Sammy," Dean growls.

"This time it is! This time I'm still able to argue! You can't even sleep in a dark room and you think you can handle _being blind?_ "

The words hit Dean like a blow--he actually staggers, just a bit, not noticeable to anybody who doesn't know him as well as Sam. "You _knew?_ "

"Do you think all those lights left themselves on?" Sam snaps. 

"I--I didn't think about it," Dean admits. "I--" Like that, he shakes off the shock, the way he always does, and straightens and turns back into the big brother. "It doesn't matter. I can handle it. But he needs to be able to see to have _any_ life. Take my sight and leave him his."

"Dean--"

"Not your call anymore, Sam."

" _We_ have not agreed," Frigg says tartly. 

"You want something else? Somebody's soul? That's what demons always want, isn't it?"

Sam's not sure who Dean pisses off with that statement, but half a dozen bolts of lightning slam into the trees at the edge of the lawn. " _We are not demons_." It's a growl from a dozen different throats, and something that might be actual fear flickers in Dean's eyes. "I am Frigg, Queen of Asgard, mortal, and remember that it is within my power to ensure that your brother never sees or even speaks again!"

Dean doesn't apologize, but his body language relaxes, just a hair, just enough that he's not radiating _threat_ so much. Sam doesn't trust him for a minute, but the goddesses don't know Dean as well as he does and they seem to accept it at face value.

"Now," Frigg goes on, her voice much calmer, "I can do this, if you both wish. Leave Sam his sight and take yours. But there is a price."

"There always is," Dean mutters, but at least this time, he doesn't say anything about demons.

"This is no deal such as your demons offer. They offer little in exchange for much. We offer--a bargain. It is nothing to us which of you cannot see, so long as the prophecy is fulfilled. But for it to be you, we request a small favor."

Dean shoots Sam a look. Sam only shrugs. "Like what?" Dean asks warily.

"The forty generations of the prophecy do not begin until the vessel dies. You are young, so you have many years before you. Those years will give the world even more time. If we give in to your demand, if we cripple you both, are you willing to _live?_ To _dwell_ in those years, rather than seeking death so quickly and so often?"

Dean's eyes darken. "You mean, stop hunting. Settle down. Live like normal people."

"Yes. Will you pay _that_ price for your brother's sight?"

Dean looks at Sam. "Don't," Sam breathes. "Dean--"

Dean's answer is drowned by darkness, and the sanctuary vanishes.

*******

Sam's eyes snap open, and he sits up. There's a lamp on. He's in Bobby's bedroom, on Bobby's bed, and when he gets his eyes to focus, it's on those obnoxious bunny slippers, still on his feet. Why is he--

"Sam?" Cas asks from his left. "Is everything--"

Memory rushes back. "You _ass_ , if you said yes--"

"To Michael?" Cas yelps.

"No, to Frigg!"

" _Frigg?_ The goddess?"

"No, Frigg the porn star," Sam snaps. Dean is still beside him, still asleep. The bruises Sam left on his hands earlier fade as Sam watches. A goodbye present from the goddesses? 

"What are you talking about, Sam?"

"We found out who's doing this. I'll explain later. Dean!" He reaches over and gives his brother a shake, not caring if his fingers dig into Dean's skin too hard. Serves him right if they do, if he said yes, if he gave in to this _stupid_ plan-- "Wake up!"

Dean shoves his arms away, but it's sleep-instinct; his eyes are still closed. He might mumble something, but Sam still can't hear him.

Sam weighs his options for a second, then decides his brother will live with a black eye and slaps him.

Dean comes wide awake with a yell, sitting up so fast that he nearly collides with Sam. Sam guesses that the initial stream of words is probably cussing, but he doesn't care, he needs to see Dean's eyes--

Dean's pupils dilate, contract. His eyes move just as they normally would if he was looking around the room. Are they a little unfocused? He doesn't _look_ blind, but would he? Every indication is that the problem with Sam's senses is in the brain, not the sensory organs themselves. Nobody said anything about a difference in Sam's eyes, and it's not like Cas is known for his manners. Dean says something, but Sam still can't hear--

"He's asking if you can see," Cas says, moving around the bed to Dean's side.

"Can _I_ see?" Sam repeats incredulously. Is the angel _stupid?_ "Can _he_ see?" Cas just stares at him. "Dean!" Sam shouts, not caring if the whole of Sioux Falls hears him. "Can you see?"

Dean swallows hard. "No," he says, shaking his head, and Sam wants to scream. Dean says something else--clearly an order to Cas, since Cas goes to the bedroom door and speaks into the hall. Probably giving Bobby an update on all the yelling.

"Dammit, Dean, I told you not to!"

Dean's hands come up. He's feeling around, searching for something--and then his hands find Sam's shirt. One clenches in the fabric while the other pats its way up Sam's chest and neck to his face, then his hair. He smiles. "Sammy," Sam lip-reads, and then there's too much too quick for him to catch.

"He says he'd know that brick wall that needs a haircut anywhere," Cas says, looking confused. "He says-- What? Dean, slow down."

Dean _must_ be babbling if Cas can't keep up. Sam knows why. He's desperate to make Sam understand, as if Sam needs an explanation. "I asked you not to," he says, and the words probably come out sullen, but he doesn't care. Just _once_....

Dean stops, looking stunned and faintly hurt. 

"He's not explaining why, Sam," Cas says gently. "He says he's sorry he couldn't get it all back for you."


	6. Aftermath

**Eighteen months later**

The downstairs is so stuffed with people that Sam can hardly move. Most of them are strangers to him. Dean and Cas are the ones who know the neighbors, because Sam seldom leaves the house ( _their_ house, Jesus) except to go to the backyard or over to Bobby's. Dean has his classes at the center, and he's always outside on nice days, indulging his inner twelve-year-old with the local twelve-year-olds. When he's at home, the single moms (and a few of the married ones) among their neighbors flock to their kitchen to exchange recipes with Cas, since that gives them an excuse to ogle Dean.

But before the medical fiasco this past September, when a blood clot nearly cost Sam his leg, hardly anybody outside their inner circle knew he was here. He has to deal with fewer stares when he stays in the backyard. Occasionally, Dean will bully him into taking a walk, the blind threatening the crippled with a leash, but Sam's inability to communicate with normal people makes interaction problematic, to say the least. And after that mess with the social worker who completely misunderstood and assumed that Sam's ability to reply to Dean's conversation meant he was faking his deafness, Dean hasn't even done that much very often.

Now, though, everybody at least knows that Sam is Dean's brother, which means that half the neighbors--the single half--want to use him to get further into Dean's good graces. They all know that something's wrong with him, but only Mrs. Ihle, the widow from across the street, knows all the particulars. The rest think he has some kind of mental problem--a weird kind of autism or some mental deficiency, maybe the result of brain damage, given the awkward way he walks.

Sam doesn't need to hear to read their expressions. For most of them, the gazes have changed from mere appreciation of Dean's looks to blatant hero-worship, because surely only a saint would take care of his idiot brother when he has his own handicap to deal with. They don't realize that that particular attitude is just going to ensure that Dean's never more than nice to them. He doesn't need eyes to sense when people have a negative opinion of Sam, and _nothing_ kills a woman's chances with Dean more quickly than disliking Sam.

Normally, when strangers come over, like Dean's poker group, Sam retreats to his room or the den, but tonight, the house is so packed that it's not an option. Nobody's actually _in_ Sam's room, of course, but it's December and everybody's bundled up, more than the line of hooks by the front door can handle, so it's been commandeered as a cloakroom. The den, which serves as Sam's personal library and research room, is packed full of little kids and videos and games and child-safe beverages, with a rotation of responsible adults so that everybody gets a chance to spend time in the adult gathering in the living room. He doesn't think there's anybody upstairs, but he's not about to risk climbing stairs with this many eyes on him. Hiding in the bathroom would just be temporary--and rude, since there's enough people here that it's hardly ever empty. There's the back porch--except that Cas is employing the weather to keep the beer cold and free up space in the actual fridge, and Sam thinks that might be where the smokers are sneaking out.

The kitchen? Not while Cas is playing mad caterer. Sam still has some survival instinct left. Plus, Dean insisted on Cas inviting friends, and Sam is dead certain that the two men who showed up as Cas's guests are not fully human. For one thing, they were dressed for Bermuda, not Christmas in South Dakota. For another, Cas doesn't _know_ anybody else. Making friends does not figure into his interpretation of his punishment.

Punishment. Right. Michael thinks it is, surely, that he restored "little Castiel's" powers and rank in Heaven--it ultimately wasn't Cas's fault that the Apocalypse got derailed so thoroughly--but then ordered him to Earth to take care of the Winchester brothers until they died, _just in case_ somebody figures out how to undo the damage and the vessels become useful again. Sam's pretty sure Cas thinks he got the better of that deal. He _knows_ he and Dean did. They couldn't manage this without Cas, not five senses short. Dean could, if he was on his own. But Sam can't, and Dean can't take care of Sam without help.

A pack of kids tears through the hall, racing for the kitchen, and Sam automatically throws himself back against the wall to protect himself from getting tripped or trampled. He hits hard enough that his lungs protest and it takes a second to get his breath back. He _needs_ to get out of here. Just for a minute.

He starts edging toward the front door, smiling nervously whenever somebody comes up to chat or offer to help him assemble a plate of snacks. When Dean or Cas is with him, he's okay, they can relay--but Dean's with the rest of the little kids and Cas is busy. Very few of the guests know that Sam's deaf. Dean's always forgetting to tell people.

One or two of the teachers from the center realized it as soon as they tried to talk to him, and tried to sign, but Sam doesn't know ASL. He tried--he spent _three months_ trying--but for the first time in his life, he found something that he literally _could not_ learn. Signing is a full-body exercise, and it requires a certain amount of sensory input from the skin in order to get the correct "feel" of the signs as they're made. Reading signs is difficult, too, though the reasons for that are less clear--maybe some bit of crossed wiring left over from what the goddesses did to him. He's a little better at reading lips, but that requires practice, which requires contact with people, and that he avoids as much as possible.

In those same three months, Dean learned the basics of Braille and echolocation, figured out how to use a collapsible white cane as an emergency weapon, collected enough information to decide that a guide dog would be more trouble than help for their household, and obtained the phone numbers of every attractive-sounding female at the center. Not to mention helping Cas set this place up.

The adults in the living room are at least a little less hazardous to Sam's progress than the kids. About half of them are blind--Dean's poker group and other friends from the center--so they're not staring at Sam, at least. Bobby--no longer in a wheelchair, thanks to the renewal of Cas's powers--Ellen, Jo, and Bobby's sheriff friend are standing in a corner, avoiding the press of civilians, undoubtedly being very careful to keep to normal conversation. Jo waves at him, gesturing him over, but he shakes his head, then jerks his head in the direction of the front door. She nods, understanding, and says something to the others. Bobby pushes himself away from the window, clearly intending to come help, but Sam shakes his head again. He doesn't need to be rescued, he just needs to be alone for a few minutes.

Finally, he escapes. The air is undoubtedly freezing, but Sam was so desperate to get away from people that he didn't think to get his coat. There's a slight breeze--he can tell by the way the lights hanging from the porch eaves move in the wind, and the occasional bob of one of the inflatable monstrosities in their yard. It can't be too bad, though; Jo or Bobby would have stopped him if he were about to walk into dangerous windchill.

It would have been safer to brave the stairs and go into Cas's room--Cas doesn't mind; he's hardly ever in there, since he doesn't need to sleep--and maybe invoke the sanctuary. A nice peaceful trip to the lake would do him good right now. But Dean will come looking for him eventually, and Sam isn't yet ready to tell him that he still has access to it. Dean won't understand.

Some days--like today--Sam thinks he's on the brink of madness. Dean and Cas want the party to be Sam's introduction to the neighborhood, a way for him to meet the neighbors and maybe make some friends, but it's really just a bitter reminder of everything he lost to stop the Apocalypse.

It's been two years since he smelled or tasted anything, nearly that long since he last was able to touch. The silence is made slightly more bearable by the link Cas created so that Sam can hear Dean the way he hears the angel, but those two voices are _all_ he ever hears, and he only hears them when they want him to. 

Some days, he just wants to crawl into bed and invoke the sanctuary and never leave. There, at least, he's human again, and if the food and drink are imaginary, who cares? He can taste it. He can walk without fearing that he's going to stumble. He can have conversations that aren't reliant on gestures and notepads, and so what if they're with assorted deities and various long-dead pagans? He can touch, and some of the goddesses are not at all averse to sharing that with him.

But other days, he watches Dean laugh as he explains to Cas why Christmas means there absolutely _must_ be a giant inflatable Frosty on the roof, and it doesn't matter that all his food is tasteless. He watches Dean bring actual honest-to-God _friends_ into the house to listen to a football game or play poker with Braille cards, friends who have never known that ghosts and goblins are real, and it doesn't matter that he can't hear the raucous laughter. He watches Dean flirt with every single mom who sits in the kitchen pretending to be here to swap recipes with Cas, and it doesn't matter that he can't smell their perfume. He listens to Dean gush about the job the occupational therapy center has arranged for him, sees the way Dean's sightless eyes light up when he talks about the kids he'll be helping, and it doesn't matter, not one bit, that Sam's skin is permanently numb.

His brother has a life, a _real_ life. It turns out eyes aren't a necessity for that.

And if the price of that life is that Sam doesn't have one--well, no matter what anybody says, he _did_ set Lucifer on the world. What he has now, limited as it is, is way more than he deserves.

Sam leans against a porch support (checking to make sure he's not smashing a delicate Christmas-light bulb) and looks out into the night. Their neighbors all have Christmas lights, though none of the displays come close to matching the chaos on their own roof. "Tacky" does not begin to describe what happens you mix Dean, an angel, and Christmas lights. With Cas projecting flashes of sight the way he projects his voice into Sam's head, Dean was able to supervise, and Dean's taste is not all that much better for being blind. Sam tried to convince them both to wrestle it back within the bounds of good taste, but Cas--not Dean--resisted. Something about it being the season when light's needed most, though what that has to do with inflatable snowmen on the roof, Sam has no idea. He's reasonably sure their house could be used as a beacon for aircraft, and he thinks at least one of those tacky inflatable things plays music.

(Okay, so maybe he's still a little annoyed that they made him take the sign that said "The blind man did the decorating" out of the arms of the light-up angel on the front lawn. The neighbors thought it was hilarious, even if they didn't get the _entire_ joke. And God knows the Christmas Brigade hadn't let him do anything else.)

It's peaceful here now, the multicolored lights almost as soothing as the sanctuary. A few more minutes, and his jangled nerves will calm down enough that he can go back in. Maybe he can sit down next to Mrs. Ihle. She's eighty if she's a day, but if the way Dean flirts with her is any indication, she sounds fifty years younger and quite attractive. Her husband had MS, so she's used to dealing with somebody with mobility and dexterity issues. Since she met Sam, she's started carrying a notebook, and she not only has neat handwriting, she writes fast, so he can actually manage something approximating a normal conversation with her. 

More importantly, she didn't know him before, so her eyes don't have the perpetual sad shadow of what-once-was, the way Bobby's and Ellen's and Jo's and even Cas's do.

"Hello, Sam."

Sam jerks around in sheer reflex, managing to wrap his arm around the porch support at the last minute to keep himself from unbalancing and toppling down the porch steps. There's a woman sitting in the porch swing, a woman who was _not_ there when he stepped outside. The breeze ripples her long silver hair, and she gazes at him with fondness that isn't quite human, a faux-beatific smile he remembers too well. "Lucifer," he says, and thinks he might even hiss the word.

"No joyous welcome?" Lucifer's voice echoes in his head, the same way he hears Cas and Dean. It's been so long since he's heard anything besides those two voices that his instincts are screaming at him the same way they once would have if he walked into a house and smelled sulfur.

But the house is full of civilians, and Lucifer would probably just vanish the way angels do, so Sam grits his teeth and forces himself to stand there rather than sounding an alarm. Lucifer's not a threat. Not yet. "New outfit?" he asks, doing his best to sound snide.

"Oh, this?" Lucifer picks at the front of her dress. "I had to let poor Nick go. He had the bad manners to fall apart on me. Left the _worst_ spot on the carpet." She shrugs. "Plenty more where he came from, though. This is his second cousin four times removed, I think." She gives him a smile that is undoubtedly meant to be flirtatious. It makes Sam shiver in a way that cold never could. "Also some distant relation of yours, I think. It _is_ a bloodline, after all. It's not Nick and Sheila's fault that they weren't properly prepared."

"Is that what you're calling it now?" 

"My _dear_ brothers hedged their bets by putting a few limitations on me while they had me tucked away in Hell. And then, of course, they forgot to tell the underlings to _undo_ them. Luckily, I had Azazel to see to that for me." Lucifer gives him that false smile again. "But once I settled in, I had the most _remarkable_ piece of news fall into my new lap about how there was a deed in Sioux Falls that had 'Sam and Dean Winchester' on it, and I just _had_ to come investigate."

Right. Cas had been a little fuzzy on the whole "wanted" thing, plus _he_ doesn't technically exist, so the house is in their names. Their _real_ names. Watching Dean's head explode had been rather amusing, though not half as much as when he realized that they couldn't angel-proof the place if they expected Cas to live here. "So what? You decided to lay off sparking volcanoes just to come see me?"

"I bore quickly."

"I'm sure the people in Reykjavik appreciate it."

"You didn't expect me to _just_ retreat into Hell, did you?"

Sam allows himself a smile. "No, actually, the childish temper tantrum was _exactly_ what we expected. What was it? Two volcanoes and a hurricane?"

"Three volcanoes, a hurricane, and two earthquakes, and I thought about lighting Yellowstone, but I decided I wasn't ready to incinerate you just yet."

Like Pele and Chantico would _let_ him spark Yellowstone. Pele, especially. She's a little temperamental, and like most deities whose people were poorly treated by missionaries, she _really_ hates angels. She only let him get away with the other volcanoes because they were fairly isolated--and because the other goddesses convinced her that a couple of small volcanoes were better than having Lucifer throw a _real_ tantrum. "What do you want, Lucifer?"

"A fallen angel can't just visit?"

"No."

Lucifer sighs dramatically, but his (her?) voice hardens. "What I've always wanted. My vessel." Sam can see his fingers digging into the wood, even if he can't feel it. "But somehow you made it useless to me, didn't you, Sammy? Somehow you and your brother managed to thwart the entire Apocalypse."

"We're the victims here. We had nothing to do with it."

"Someone did, and when I find out who, you're going to be right back where you started, and _this_ time, I will _make_ you say yes. No more Mr. Nice Satan."

The threat would be chilling if he hadn't once spent an hour in the immediate vicinity of Coyolxauhqui and Huitzilopochtli. Those two make the archangels look positively functional. "It can't be undone," Sam says mildly. "Even the people who did this can't reverse it, assuming they wanted to."

"They undid your blindness."

"You know how Dean is. Can't resist a bad deal."

"And sooner or later, he's going to resent you for that. Someday, he's going to go into that garage and pet that car of his and _hate_ you for taking his eyes."

Sam's spent way too much time hanging out with entities far more powerful than Lucifer. He laughs. The reaction _stuns_ Lucifer, whose jaw actually drops. " _That's_ what you're going with? That I ruined Dean's life? No shit, Sherlock. But I didn't do it _now_. I did it when I was _born!_ When he got stuck as the older brother of Lucifer's true vessel and got damned to be Michael's! This didn't just end the Apocalypse, it gave him what he deserved!"

"Blindness?"

"A _life_. A _decent_ life. Not the shit we had before."

Lucifer's eyes flick to a spot behind Sam, and she smiles again, a little spitefully. "And does Dean agree with you about that? I seem to recall that Dean was rather fond of his life--the hunting, the boozing, the whoring--"

"Dean's fine with it, and _you_ don't get to talk about--"

"Sam?"

Sam freezes. _Damn_ it. No wonder Lucifer smiled like that, she'd seen the screen door open and Dean come outside looking for him.

"Jo said you'd come out here. Too crowded?"

"A little."

Dean nods. "Make a new friend?" he asks. His voice is wary, like he's not sure if _friend_ should be sarcastic or not.

"Just an old enemy. Lucifer got a new meatsuit."

Dean turns sightless eyes toward Sam's voice. "And he's still sitting on the porch because?"

"Oh, come on," Lucifer protests, and Dean glares in the direction of the swing. "It's _Christmas_."

"And it's a private party." He turns back to Sam. "Is it just me, or is Lucifer sounding a little low on testosterone?"

"The new meatsuit's a woman."

"Gotcha. Well, then, Luci--" Lucifer's lip curls. "Like I said, private party. Also, I've already got two more angels in the house than I _ever_ wanted, and _you_ weren't invited. So get your ass off my property before Sam has to call in the cavalry."

Lucifer allows the barest hint of confusion to show, but she stands and comes toward them. Sam reaches for Dean's arm, drawing him back, but Lucifer only goes down the steps, not approaching them. "This won't save you forever," she hisses. "Forty generations is _nothing_ to angels."

So word of the prophecy has made it to whatever corner of Hell she's been hiding in. Yet Lucifer clearly doesn't know _who_ wrote that prophecy and put it into half a continent's worth of medieval Bibles. Maybe the demons just didn't want to risk telling her and having her kill the messenger? "It's enough," Sam replies, forcing his voice to stay even. 

Lucifer takes the rest of the steps in a rush, but stops and turns around once she's halfway down the walk. "Enjoy your party," she says. "I know where you are now. You may be worthless as vessels, but I can still make your lives hell. And your little guardian angel can't stop me."

Dean chuckles, and Sam lets himself grin. A threat. 

Their reaction isn't what Lucifer expected.

Neither is the gigantic owl that swoops out of the night, snatching a few silver hairs as it flies by Lucifer's head before it settles onto the thickest branch of the ancient oak tree in the front yard. Lucifer yells something incoherent--and freezes.

Two ravens sit on the gateposts. More birds circle overhead, glowing faintly in the night. Three cats, sleek and tawny and huge, trot across the yard. Two cobras the size of pythons slither onto the walk and rear up, spreading their hoods and blocking the steps. A scorpion of a species native to Egypt crawls along the porch railing.

Up and down the street, shadows gather--woman-shaped and animal-shaped and some with no shape at all. Moonlight gleams off silver on Mrs. Ihle's roof, never mind that there's no moon tonight, and a rainbow flicker dances up and down the street and along their property lines, ready to summon more if necessary. No myth ever mentioned that Iris is more hyper than a toddler on a sugar high.

"Cas doesn't have to," Sam says. " _They_ will."

Terror flickers across Lucifer's face--only a flicker, before she regains her composure. " _These?_ " She's trying for arrogance, but there's a tremor in her voice. "I can smash these with a thought."

"Try." Lucifer _might_ be able to take on a single goddess, but from here, Sam can count at least twenty. These are not the gentle ones, either; these are goddesses of war and protection and magic. If that much power hits Lucifer at once-- There are actual _deities_ who couldn't survive that. " _These_ are the people who took your vessel away. You might want to keep that in mind."

Lucifer stares at him, caught between shock and horror, looking for words, or maybe something to snap her fingers at. It's long enough for Mafdet, Sekhmet, and Bastet to get to her, and they apparently can't resist the opportunity to do that thing that all cats do: glomming onto the person who plainly hates cats, twining around Lucifer's legs--purring, undoubtedly, just to pour lemon juice on the papercut--until Lucifer makes a strangled sound and vanishes.

"Any of you guys want to come in?" Dean asks. Sam doesn't know if he can somehow see them--the glow of power, maybe--or if he can just feel the power in the air. 

Not that it matters. This is Dean, and Dean's not about to be reverent.

The tension in the air eases. The ravens cackle, making sure that Sam can hear it, and fly off. Shadows disperse. The owl remains in the oak, watchful. Mafdet tosses aside her dignity for a butt-wiggle before pouncing on Sekhmet's tail, and then Bastet leaps on _her_ , and the three cats tumble into nothingness. The cobras retreat somewhere under the porch. The scorpion turns around and glares up at Sam with eyes that glow red. "Yes, I know," he says, struggling not to sigh, and she scurries off. Selket doesn't like South Dakota, it's too cold for her. 

"Get your ass back inside," Dean orders.

"I'm--"

"What color are your fingers?"

Sam looks down. "Finger-colored?"

"So they're not blue _yet_. Get inside before you freeze. It's fucking _cold_ out here."

"In December? Really?"

"Yeah, yeah." Dean hesitates. "You know, I heard what you said."

Oh, shit. "Which part?"

"About how you think I might resent you." Dean's hand comes up, seems to be patting him on the back of the neck.

"I was arguing with _Satan_ , Dean, don't--"

The reason for Dean's hand on the back of his neck becomes clear, as Dean smacks the back of his head hard enough for Sam's skull to rattle. "I heard the next part, too, dumbass. You didn't ruin my life. And if you ever say that again, I'll do more than hit you."

"No more _NCIS_ reruns for you," Sam mutters.

"Yeah, yeah. Now get back inside. Besides, Jody's asking where you are. I think she wants to apologize again." He shudders theatrically. "I don't know why she keeps apologizing to _you_ and not me, I _heard_ the whole thing--"

"Do you know where Ellen's anti-possession tattoo is?"

"No."

"Then shut up." There are things Sam never wanted to know about Bobby. Or Ellen. Or the sheriff. Things that are now seared into his memory.

"I doubt--"

"Dean, _Cas_ was catatonic for a week."

"You'd think angels would have a better appreciation for God's creations, wouldn't you?" Dean asks with a chuckle. He gets the door before Sam does, fingers managing the latch as nimbly as if he can still see it. "At least he finally learned to knock. Speaking of, did I tell you that Selene brought her friend to meet you?"

"Dean!" Sam hisses, hoping no one inside heard that. The music is probably loud, but that's no guarantee. Nobody's looking at them, at least, except for a glance or two to see why the door's open. "I told you to stop trying to fix me up!"

"Yeah, yeah. Sooner or later you're going to have to figure _something_ out or you're going to explode, and Selene says her friend's got experience with paraplegics--"

"I doubt she meant--"

"Oh, trust me. She meant." Sam seriously hates that smirk. "Your tongue still works, right? She was asking."

_"DEAN!"_

**_the end_ **


End file.
